01/10/21
Autódromo Internacional do Algarve
The BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team kicked off the final race weekend in Europe after completing today’s free practice sessions at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve (Portugal). BMW Factory rider Eugene Laverty again stepped in for Tom Sykes as he was declared unfit to ride by the circuit medical team. Eugene began his FP1 well and was inside the top 10 until he crashed at T8 in dramatic fashion. Fortunately, Eugene was OK, however his BMW M1000RR was damaged in the crash and was unable to finish the session. Eugene made some changes to his bike for the FP2 and posted some respectable times as he ran a race simulation on the same tyre throughout. His overall position on day 1 was P15.
Michael van der Mark was fast out the garage in this morning’s FP1 session and immediately was setting good lap times. Throughout the session, Mickey stayed in the top 10 places with just +0.803 separating him to first place. In FP2 Mickey struggled to make big improvements to his times from FP1 and slipped down into 11th overall for the day.