Pata Honda’s Kyle Smith set the fastest combined time following today’s two opening free practice sessions for round two of the 2015 World Supersport championship at Buriram in Thailand.
With an extended Free Practice 1 to get accustomed to the new 4.554km facility 400km north-east of Bangkok, Smith finished second fastest this morning on his Pata Honda CBR600RR before upping the pace in the afternoon session.
With ambient temperatures of 36 C and a track temperature approaching 60°C, the 23-year-old British rider went 0.4s faster than his opening effort and finished 0.3s ahead of second placed Patrick Jacobsen.
The World Supersport riders have another practice session tomorrow morning before the afternoon’s qualifying session which will determine the final grid positions for Sunday’s 18-lap second-round race.
Kyle Smith - P1, 1m38.490s
It’s been a really good day and I’m very happy to be fastest after the first day of practice at a new track. It’s been really hot again today but I’m handling it OK and after the first practice this morning we made a couple of small changes to the bike for the afternoon session. It made a big improvement and the lap times seemed to come, so I hope we can keep it up for the rest of the weekend. It’s a track where the harder you push the harder it becomes to get the lap time and there were a couple of times I came round and, although I was really pushing, I was going faster. There are one or two technical sections and it’ll be interesting to see how qualifying goes because sometimes the lap doesn’t come from pushing. I really like turn 10 on the back section of the track and had so me fun geting a bit sideways there at the end of the session when the tyre was finished, but it’s all good!
Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator
From Kyle’s first few laps on the track he was immediately fast which simply confirmed that, after his impressive start in Phillip Island, he can learn new tracks quickly. This afternoon, when track conditions were worse, we made a couple of really minor changes but it worked out really well, together with some better tyres. Kyle was feeling comfortable and got into a good rhythm to put in some really fast laps that nobody could really match, so it’s been a good start for him and his team.
Weather
Sunny Intervals
Air
36°C
Track
58°C
Humidity
47%
Free Practice Results
1 Kyle Smith 1m38.490s GBR HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team
2 Patrick Jacobson 1m38.592s USA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres
3 Kenan Sofuoglu 1m38.757s TUR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Puccetti Racing
4 Jules Cluzel 1m38.796s FRA MV MV Agusta Reparto Corse
5 Ratthapark Wilairot 1m38.926s THA HONDA CORE Motorsport Thailand
6 Gino Rea 1m39.008s GBR HONDA CIA Landlords Insurance Honda
7 Lucas Mahias 1m39.214s FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres
8 Lorenzo Zanetti 1m39.227s ITA MV MV Agusta Reparto Corse
9 Martin Cardenas 1m39.510s COL HONDA CIA Landlords Insurance Honda
10 Marco Faccani 1m39.520s ITA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Puccetti Racing
