Pata Honda’s Kyle Smith set the fifth-fastest time overall on his Honda CBR600RR in today’s opening two free practice sessions for the 10th round World Supersport race at Jerez in Spain, just 0.7s behind provisional pole sitter Kenan Sofuoglu.
The day was marred by a crash involving French rider Jules Cluzel, currently second in the championship table, late in Free Practice 2 this afternoon in which he sustained a fractured leg and dislocated shoulder.
Returning from a seven-week summer break, Smith was quickly up to speed on his CBR machine and was fifth-fastest in this morning’s opening free practice session. However, with track temperatures increasing to 45ºC this afternoon, grip levels dropped at the 4.423km Jerez circuit, preventing most of the top riders, including Smith, from improving their lap times.
Free practice three tomorrow morning will be followed by a 45-minute qualifying session in the afternoon to determine final grid positions for Sunday’s 10th-round race.
Kyle Smith - P5It’s been a long break so I’m glad to back on the CBR again, especially at a track that I really like! This morning went pretty good and I was happy with my riding and the pace that we were able to run at. This afternoon when the track temperature went up the grip levels went down and I didn’t manage to get any better lap times. But I’m feeling comfortable on the bike and we don’t seem to have any major problems as we go into tomorrow, so we’ll just have to see how qualifying goes in the afternoon.
Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinatorIt was quite a good day but the changing conditions from the morning to the afternoon made things a bit more interesting. There was not the same level of grip in the afternoon session and we struggled a bit in a few corners, especially in the final sector. But we can see on the data that Kyle can ride these a little bit differently and setting-wise we can make a few little changes to improve on his current position.
Free Practice Results
1 Kenan Sofuoglu 1m43.680s TUR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Puccetti Racing 2 Jules Cluzel 1m43.869s FRA MV MV Agusta Reparto Corse 3 Gino Rea 1m44.258s GBR HONDA CIA Landlords Insurance Honda 4 Lucas Mahias 1m44.360s FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres 5 Kyle Smith 1m44.381s GBR HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team 6 Patrick Jacobson 1m44.425s USA HONDA CORE Motorsport Thailand 7 Vladimir Leonov 1m44.509s RUS HONDA Moscow Region Yakhnich Motorsport 8 Lorenzo Zanetti 1m44.678s ITA MV MV Agusta Reparto Corse 9 Alex Baldolini 1m44.868s ITA MV Race Department ATK#25 10 Marco Faccani 1m44.914s ITA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Puccetti Racing
