The opening day of action at the final round of the 2016 FIM Superbike World Championship drew to an end with Nicky Hayden eighth on the combined timesheets from the day’s two free practice sessions at the Losail International Circuit in Qatar. Hayden’s Honda WorldSBK teammate Michael van der Mark was twelfth after an early FP2 crash halted his progress, so tomorrow the young Dutchman will try to earn a spot in Superpole 2 during the first session, scheduled at 17:30 local time (GMT +3).

Nicky Hayden jumped back on his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP and quickly got back up to speed around the long and fast-flowing Losail track. The 35-year-old American rider was elevated to first place in the early part of Free Practice 2 but, as the session went on, he was unable to improve his pace enough to stay near the top. His eighth fastest lap-time, though, was only three and a half tenths off third place.

After getting off to a good start in the morning with third place in FP1, Michael van der Mark crashed unhurt at turn two in the early stages of the afternoon session. Due to the considerable damage suffered by his Fireblade machine in the process, the 24 year-old from Rotterdam in the Netherlands was unable to return to the track. As the chequered flag was deployed, he found himself in twelfth place – although still within 0.150s of a top-10 finish.


Nicky Hayden 69 - 8th/1'58.365

Things went pretty good in the first session: immediately, I was able to make some pretty decent lap-times. I surely expected the track to be more dirty that it was in the first session. I was also able to make quite a long run and keep a good pace and, even in the afternoon, things were going well. I thought everything was going pretty smooth but in the second half, everybody seemed to improve a lot more than I did, so we ended up in a position that surely doesn’t make us happy. We improved a tenth here and a tenth there, just not enough. We have a lot of data to work on, but to be honest I don’t have big problems with the bike and I don’t see anything that is really holding me back, so I think we all need to find a little bit extra and see how it goes tomorrow.

Michael van der Mark 60 - 12th/1'58.673

The track conditions improved quite quickly this morning but at the beginning I wasn’t feeling good with the front of the bike. We made some changes during the session and I started to feel better and better; the final lap didn’t feel too fast to me but in the end it was a really good one. In the afternoon we made some more changes to the front and I was feeling OK on the bike. Then, unfortunately the crash happened and that was basically it. Shame, because we were building some momentum and I feel I could have done really well. Tomorrow won’t be easy because we will start from Superpole 1, but we will do our best.

Pieter Breddels - Technical Manager

In the morning session, both guys were really quick and we were happy with their positions at the end of FP1. With Nicky, we played a little bit with the setup and we were able to find a better front tyre for him. He is happy with the bike and comfortable with his race pace, but now we need to find some more speed on the single lap. Michael was really doing well in the early moments of free practice two: the crash was not a big one, but the bike was so damaged up to the point that the guys have to basically build a new one. Things like that can happen, though, but on the bright side he was quite happy with the set-up, so we won’t need many changes for tomorrow. Too bad for the time lost, but I’m confident he’ll make it to Superpole 2 and we will use the 15 extra minutes for some more track time.