Portimao (Portugal), Saturday 15 September 2018
The Autodromo Internacional do Algarve in Portugal has today hosted the first Superbike race of this tenth world championship round. It proved to be a positive race for Gulf Althea BMW rider Loris Baz, who crossed the line in sixth place, his best result of the season so far. In the Stock1000 category, Alessandro Delbianco has qualified in eighth position for tomorrow’s race.
Superpole1: eleventh in practice yesterday, Baz faced the first Superpole phase today. Completing seven laps over the course of the 15-minute session, his best lap, set in the final two minutes, was a 1’41.674. Thanks to this very fast time, the Frenchman closed this session in second place, thus gaining access to the subsequent Superpole 2.
Superpole 2: Baz headed out on track for the final minutes of the session, completing two laps on the qualifying tyre. His best time, a 1’41.213, saw him close in eighth place, which translated into a third row start for race 1.
SBK race 1: Baz got away well from eighth on the grid, lying ninth through the first corners. Up to eighth by lap four, the Frenchman gained another position mid-race, and another in the final stages. Crossing the line in sixth place, the Gulf Althea BMW man scored his best result of the season so far, as well as 10 all-important championship points.
STK1000 qualifying: fifth in the combined practices, Delbianco was back on track for qualifying this afternoon. The Italian worked well with his technicians, fine tuning a few details on his BMW. Recording a best lap time of 1’45.370, the rider finished the session in eighth place, and will therefore start tomorrow’s race from the third row.
“A good race today. I didn’t lose too much time off the line and then pushed to catch those immediately ahead. I could see I was about a second from Torres and that he was struggling with the rear tyre, so I was able to catch and pass him and achieve the best result of the season so far. A good race, not a dream result but not at all bad considering we didn’t test this summer. We were faster than many of the guys, which is very positive of course, and so I’m happy for myself and the team. We also get to start from the front row tomorrow, so we’ll try to make the most of that.”
“Today went quite well. Unfortunately I struggled a little in adapting to my bike in this afternoon’s higher temperatures and so we finished eighth. I’m satisfied with the work completed though, and tomorrow we’ll do our best to complete a good race.”
