Having returned to the tracks just three weeks ago following an enforced break of almost four months, Team HRC has completed test sessions at the Catalunya-Barcelona and Motorland Aragón circuits in order to be as prepared as possible for round two of the 2020 Superbike World Championship, taking place this coming weekend at Jerez de la Frontera in Spain.

Factory riders Alvaro Bautista and Leon Haslam are looking forward to the upcoming races, having continued to train hard during the lockdown period. Testing has helped the pair to regain confidence aboard their CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP machines and get back into the rhythm of working with their technicians, also in light of the fact that the Superbikes have not raced since early March at the Phillip Island circuit in Australia. During that opening round of the championship, Haslam scored a best result of fifth in race 1, while Bautista crossed the line sixth in both of the Superbike races. Results that currently see the riders placed sixth (Bautista) and ninth (Haslam) in the championship standings.

Competing on home soil, the Spaniard is keen to put in a solid performance at Jerez, as is British rider Haslam, who also enjoys racing at the Andalusian circuit.


Alvaro Bautista 19

"I'm very much looking forward to racing again following the Covid-19 situation. We’ve completed two days of testing in Barcelona and another two days in Aragón. Barcelona gave us a chance to regain all those mechanisms with the bike and in the garage, while in Aragón we had the possibility to work a lot on set-up and so I head into round two confident that I have better feeling with my bike than I had during round one in Australia, and that I can continue a positive trend. I really like Jerez, I know it very well and I am really happy to be back at a home track. The target will be to get closer to the front and then we'll see.”

Leon Haslam 91

“It feels a long time since Australia, but I’m looking forward to Jerez, a very nice circuit though with a different character of course. Pre-season testing was not so bad for us, but it will be good to head back to Spain now with the new settings we have found for our bike and line up against the other riders again. I think our package was already podium-worthy in Australia, but the result was not what we wanted and so now we have another chance to work towards the kind of results we are looking for.”