Jonathan Rea and Glenn Irwin flying high heading into World and British superbike race dates
Northern Ireland riders Jonathan Rea and Glenn Irwin enjoyed encouraging starts to weekend tests across, respectively, the World and British superbike championship meetings.
Rea was happy to reflect on his best day in Yamaha blue thanks to third across the World practice programme in the Czech Republic.
Yesterday’s free practice sessions left Rea with placings of sixth and third around the Most track for Pata Prometeon Yamaha.
Rea finished the closing outing just 0.514s off clear overall leader Toprak Razgatlioglu.
The six-time world champion finished full of optimism entering today’s run of free practice three (8am start, UK time), Superpole (10am) and race one (1pm). Tomorrow will feature the Superpole race (10am) and race two (1pm).
On the official World Superbike Championship website, when asked if yesterday marked his Friday highlight since joining Yamaha ahead of this season, Rea said: “Yeah, 100 per cent. We didn’t have any issues. I was able to go out this morning, find my feet with the Yamaha R1 here at Most. I was pleasantly impressed because the bike works quite well here. We just have a few areas to tidy up.”
He added: “I’ve had a very fast look at the analysis and Toprak’s still on another planet. I feel like we can fight for the podium but there’s a big group there of riders from second right through to eighth. It’s going to be a nice battle but there’s still room for improvement to think about battling for a race win.”
In the British championship, Irwin finished the combined free practice times top on his Hager PBM Ducati at Brands Hatch.
A frantic final lap left Irwin clear by just 0.131s heading into today’s opening race as follows: Glenn Irwin (Hager PBM Ducati) 1m:25.853s; Tommy Bridewell (Honda Racing UK) +0.131s; Ryan Vickers (OMG GRILLA Yamaha Racing) +0.144s.
Irwin heads into the sixth meeting of the season top overall by four points from Bridewell, with Saturday’s schedule featuring free practice three (10.30am), qualifying (10.50) and race one (4.15pm) before tomorrow’s finale.
On the domestic Ulster Superbikes scene, Bishopscourt will include the Neil & Donny Robinson Memorial Races this weekend.