Michael van der Mark and the Honda WorldSBK Team claimed pole position and a third place finish in race one at the Chang International Circuit today. After a third-row start, Nicky Hayden was forced to an early retirement due to a technical problem.

It has been a historical day for van der Mark, who aboard his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP was able to take his maiden pole-positon start in WorldSBK after an intense 15-minute Superpole 2, which saw the 23-year-old battling out with Tom Sykes and Jonathan Rea. As the race got underway though, van der Mark didn’t get the best start from pole and was sixth at the exit of turn one.

The young Dutchman quickly recovered to third and set his sights on Rea’s second place on lap 5, before making a small mistake on the following lap at the exit of turn eight, which cost him one and a half seconds. After that, Michael tried all he could to fill the gap with the front-runners, eventually deciding to settle for third as the race entered its final part. Thanks to his third podium finish out of three races, van der Mark keeps his and Honda’s second places in the riders’ and manufacturers’ standings, respectively.

After qualifying on the third row of the grid with the eighth fastest time, Hayden got a great launch off the grid and ran as high as fifth, before starting to experience some issues due to a faulty sensor on his #69 bike, which eventually led to an early withdrawal from the race on the tenth lap.

Race two is scheduled tomorrow at 16:00 local time (GMT+7).

Michael van der Mark 60 - 3rd

I’m so happy about my first WorldSBK pole position. I wasn’t really expecting it but once I got out on track, I had such a good feeling and just went for it. The Kawasakis are usually very competitive over a single lap but today we managed to be quicker. I made a mistake at the start of the race, I was probably a bit too excited to be on pole position. I then had a problem with downshifting and went wide at turn 1, losing a couple of more places. Step by step I was able to close the gap on Tom and Jonathan. When I got really close, I had a big moment at turn eight which cost me some time and after that, their pace did not allow me to make up ground. Anyway, I was able to be consistently quick and we just need a couple of adjustments in order to be even more competitive tomorrow.

Nicky Hayden 69 - DNF

It has been a difficult day at the office. In Superpole I wasn’t able to get the most out of the qualifying tyre, I hardly improved on my FP3 lap-time. It’s clear that we still have some work to do on that side. There’s not much I can say about the race, we had a problem with a sensor and the bike was not running smoothly, up to the point that it stopped. It’s a shame we were unable to complete the race but there is still a lot we can do before tomorrow’s second race.

Pieter Breddels - Technical Manager

We have been waiting for a pole position for quite some time and finally it came! Michael did an outstanding job in being so competitive on a race tyre first, then with the qualifier. It looks like we have found a way to make the bike perform very well over a single lap. Michael didn’t have the best of starts, but he was able to close the gap quickly to the front-runners. After he ran wide on lap six, he simply had to let them go but he managed his third place up to the finish line. Three podiums out of three races is definitely a great string of results. Nicky had a good start, but he had this small issue that ultimately prevented him from finishing the race. Now it’s time to have a look at the data in order to be ready for tomorrow.