The first day of action for the 2016 FIM Superbike World Championship has drawn to a close at Phillip Island, with both Honda WorldSBK riders – Michael van der Mark and Nicky Hayden – able to qualify directly to tomorrow’s Superpole 2 after two close-fought, one-hour free practice sessions at Phillip Island in Australia.

Despite the overcast skies and some light rain at times during both sessions, the riders were able to put in a good amount of work over the course of the day. They also managed to improve the lap-times set during the two-day test earlier this wee,k while looking for the best set up for tomorrow’s Superpole and race one.

Michael van der Mark completed a total of 55 laps around the 4,455m Australian circuit and went a long run in each of the sessions, with an encouraging race simulation put together in the afternoon. The 23-year-old from Rotterdam spent almost half of the second free practice session on top of the timesheets, eventually finishing the day in second place with a personal best of 1’31.249s.

Nicky Hayden continued to work hard with the team to improve the feeling with the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP here at Phillip Island and was able to make significant steps forward in terms of pure performance on the single lap. During the afternoon session, the 34-year-old American made a breakthrough in terms of overall set up with the bike as he elevated himself to provisional fifth courtesy of a 1’31.475s lap time, before losing one place in the closing stages.

With a new format being introduced for the 2016 edition of the series, the Australian round Superpole 2 will begin at 12:55 local time, followed by the first race of the season at 15:00.



Michael van der Mark 60 - 2nd/1'31.249

We started very well this morning and I was able to get up to speed quite quickly. I decided not to go for a lap time in the end, as we were already pretty safe. This afternoon we tried a different tyre, I went out and we did a long run, which wasn’t planned but it turned out to be a really good one. After that we opted for a different compound but I wasn’t able to get the same feeling out of it. In the end I’m very happy with second place, we have qualified directly to Superpole 2 and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.

Nicky Hayden 69 - 6th/1'31.475

Day one of my new beginning is over and it wasn’t too bad. Of course, I always would like to be faster and I would have loved to be more consistent in the afternoon, but I was able to go a bit quicker than during the test. I just need to get comfortable with how the bike moves around in changing direction and on corner exit, but I think it’s just my feeling because, after looking at the data, the team says that it isn’t moving much. I think I need to be gentler while changing direction in order not to upset it too much. I’m glad we made it to Superpole 2 and we’ll work on something tomorrow morning.

Pieter Breddels - Technical Manager

Today we faced the new Friday schedule for the first time and I think we did a very good job. Michael has been consistently fast all day long and, unlike many other riders, he decided to go for a long run in the morning. He didn’t change tyres and obviously didn’t go for the quick lap. In the afternoon, we used a new set of tyres and he did a very good long run on it, while moving up to first place in the process. We tried some other tyre combination afterwards but the feeling was not the same. Overall I think we are ready to race with him. On the other side of the garage, Nicky also did well. He was sixth at the end but definitely very close to the riders ahead of him. We have a little bit of more work to do with him in trying to make him a little bit more comfortable with the front, especially in the fast corners. Other than that it wasn’t a bad result at all and we still have some time tomorrow to do some more work on the bike.