04.09.20
Motorland Aragón
The BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team today returned to the Motorland Aragón circuit in Spain just 5 days after Round 4 #AragonWorldSBK. Round 5’s Free Practice was a positive improvement from last weeks results with Tom Sykes getting himself into the top 4 in FP1 (1'50.537). Team-mate Eugene Laverty equally took some good steps forward on the BMW S 1000 RR in FP1 placing himself in P12 with a (1'51.113), just +0.113 from Leon Haslam in tenth position.
The afternoon’s FP2 session saw a considerable rise in track temperature which meant the likelihood of times improving were very slim. Tom Sykes went through his FP2 putting good long race simulations in. Despite not improving on his time in FP1 he would end the session in P9 (1'51.037), Overall P4 on combined session. #50 Eugene Laverty similarly did not improve on his FP1 time however, after making fork height and head angle changes to his BMW S 1000 RR made a good step forward in set-up from FP2 going into tomorrow Superpole and Race 1.
Shaun Muir - Team Principal
“FP1 and FP2 was a good to start the weekend. Tom and Eugene both got solid runs in, we tried the SC0 and SCX tyres as well, so that was good to get runs on both compounds. We are confident we made a good step forward from last week, we had no issues whatsoever and both guys got some good race runs in, so we are feeling positive heading into tomorrow. If we can continue the pace we had today and take that into Superpole, I can see us being in a stronger situation than we were last week. We have put the difficulties of last week behind us now, and are fully focused on getting the results this weekend.”
Tom Sykes (GBR)
“I think we made some steps forwards today. I honestly feel that the BMW S 1000 RR is working very well in the corners, corner entry, and mid turn so we have so many positives to work with, its just the straight line performance that makes our life difficult. We saw this morning when I was out riding alone that I could do what I wanted with the bike, the consistency and lap times were there but we already had some signs that we were on the limit with the braking system, which shows the input I’m giving to the bike. I want to get where we all deserved to be, even this afternoon in the hot conditions the lap times were not too bad, but I was really on the limit with the front and rear so that’s where we need to improve for tomorrow.”
Eugene Laverty (IRL)
“I’m happy with the progress we made today because we changed the bike radically for this morning. We found some benefits but the negative was clear as we expected. Sometimes you have to make a compromise, that’s been the aim for FP2 to make a compromise but keep the gain we achieved this morning in the long corners. I think its been a good testing day but we are clearly not in the position we want to be in. The key for tomorrow is to get into those front two rows, but right now we don’t have the pace for that. That’s always been my aim but if we can get a good qualifying position for tomorrow, in the hot conditions It will be interesting to see where we end up."
