Difficult opening day for Pata Honda

[totalmotorcycle]

Difficult opening day for #Pata #Honda


The Pata Honda team endured a tough start to the final round of the World Superbike championship season at Jerez in Spain today with riders Leon Haslam and Michel Fabrizio ending the day in 15th and 17th places respectively.



Haslam and his crew spent much of the day dealing with electronics issues that affected his CBR1000RR’s engine braking performance, while Fabrizio complained of a lack of rear grip exiting corners.



Second qualifying takes place at the 4.432km Jerez circuit tomorrow morning with both riders aiming to progress to the afternoon’s Superpole, which will determine final grid positions for Sunday’s two 21-lap races.



Leon Haslam



We’ve got some problems and I think I did about six flying laps this afternoon in qualifying. I’m over two seconds away from what we were doing here in the test last year so we’ve got some work to do. We haven’t touched anything on the chassis today so we’ve got to find a solution to these issues. Everyone’s working hard to do that for tomorrow.



Michel Fabrizio



I had almost no grip, which is really disappointing since I was very fast here in the test one year ago. Now, it’s completely different and I am losing a lot of time exiting the corners which is not good at all. The team is looking very closely at everything now to see where the problem is but, for sure, we need to find the solution tonight in time for the second qualifying tomorrow morning.



Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator



These results are, of course, not good. At the moment we are puzzled why we are so far off, which has something to do with the bike and not Leon, so we have to work hard to fix the bike for him. Michel had different problems but they are probably more than just a grip issue, so it’ll be a long day for the whole Superbike squad.



2013 World Superbike championship, round 14 – Jerez (4.423km), Spain

First qualifying results:

1 Davide Giugliano (ITA) Aprilia 1m42.374s

2 Marco Melandri (ITA) BMW 1m42.641s

3 Eugene Laverty (IRL) Aprilia 1m42.756s

4 Toni Elias (ESP) Aprilia 1m42.782s

5 Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Aprilia 1m42.906s

6 Leon Camier (GBR) Suzuki 1m42.936s

15 Leon Haslam (GBR) Pata Honda 1m43.821s

17 Michel Fabrizio (ITA) Pata Honda 1m43.958s