Team HRC is preparing for the penultimate round of the 2020 Superbike World Championship, set to play out at the French circuit of Nevers Magny-Cours this coming weekend.

Just over a week ago, official riders Alvaro Bautista and Leon Haslam were competing at the Barcelona-Catalunya track in Spain. Further improving their pace and speed over the course of the weekend’s races, the Spaniard scoring a front row start and a fifth-place finish in Race 1, the Brit finishing the two Superbike races inside the top ten.

The Magny-Cours track will pose another new and exciting challenge for Team HRC, which fields its CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP2 machines on French soil for the first time.

Both riders are keen to build on the potential seen so far and round out the season with strong results at the final two rounds.

The ‘Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours’ was constructed in 1960 and is located close to the towns of Magny-Cours and Nevers, and roughly 250 km from Paris. In the past, the structure has hosted both Formula 1 and MotoGP races and has been a permanent fixture on the Superbike calendar since 2003. 4441 m in length, the track boasts 17 turns and runs in a clockwise direction.

The first free practice session will get underway on Friday at 10.30 am local time, while the two Superbike races and the Tissot Superpole race will play out over Saturday and Sunday.

Weekend schedule (CET):

Friday
10.30 – 11.20 – SBK Free Practice 1
15.00 – 15.45 – SBK Free Practice 2

Saturday
9.00 – 9.20 – SBK Free Practice 3
11.00 – 11.25 – Superpole
14.00 – SBK Race 1

Sunday
9.00 – 9.15 – SBK Warm-up
11.00 – Superpole race
14.00 – SBK Race 2


 Alvaro Bautista  19

“ In the last few days I have worked a lot on my foot in order to recover from the fracture I suffered in the Superpole race in Catalunya and I feel a bit better. We will see when I get on my bike if I’ll be able to ride well and not feel pain. As for Magny-Cours, it’s not a track where I have a lot of experience, having raced there just once, last year. It’s quite different to the Catalunya track and we will have to wait and see how our bike will behave. The feeling we had at Barcelona was very positive and we worked well there, especially on the electronics side, the area where we actually can work the most. So, we have some ideas for the coming rounds. It looks like the weather will be a bit challenging, wet and cold, conditions that are still quite new for us and so we'll see how it goes. The feeling was not bad in the wet in Catalunya, but temperatures were warmer and that makes quite a difference. Anyway, we hope to find the same positive feeling we had in Catalunya and to be able to continue to develop our bike’s setup.

Leon Haslam  91

“I’ve had some good races at Magny-Cours in the past. This time of year, the weather can be up and down but honestly, I’d like to ride the bike in the wet, because in full wet we’ve been very fast and I have good feeling. In the dry, I feel we’re on the brink of putting things together. Although my last race in Spain was difficult, I think if we can do well right from FP1, we can be challenging for the podium, so hopefully we can try to do just that this weekend in France.”

Location Information

Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours Technopole – 58470 Magny-Cours – France Magny Cours