The Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team were back on track today for the first free practice sessions of the Dutch WorldSBK weekend at the TT circuit Assen. Local hero Michael van der Mark made a solid start, taking eighth overall in the combined practice times whilst teammate Alex Lowes suffered bad luck with two unfortunate crashes. Despite the falls he was unhurt and was able to secure ninth overall at the end of the day.

Van der Mark started his first ever run on the Assen track as an official Yamaha rider on his YZF-R1 with a special orange highlighted livery on both the bike and his Alpinestars leathers, celebrating Dutch pride the day after the King’s birthday. He took a longer run in FP1, getting a feel for the circuit he knows well, on a machine he is still discovering. The young Dutchman was able to evaluate both the soft and harder option tyres available for the race weekend, with the harder currently working better for the race distance. He will work tomorrow morning with the team to make another step and be ready to represent Yamaha in front of the Dutch crowd in the first WorldSBK race. Van der Mark completed day one in eight overall, 0.800s from first position.

Teammate Lowes had a more challenging start to his Assen weekend, taking high-speed tumbles in both the morning and afternoon practice sessions. Despite falling at two of the quickest points of the circuit, the young Brit was able to bounce back with just bruises and regroup to be ready for tomorrow. Crashes aside Lowes was also on good form, finding a solid starting set up to build on for the race weekend. He completed the day in ninth overall, 0.843s from the top.



 Michael van der Mark - 8th, 1'36.183

“This morning we started off quite well, my first time here with the Yamaha. I made quite a long run to get used to the bike on the track, then we made some changes that made it even better. At the end I did my fastest lap time with a soft tyre, but we know that the soft tyre is probably not the tyre for the race tomorrow so we knew that in the afternoon we had to work on the harder tyre. We found some positive points with it, but in the end I want to see if we can make it work with the softer one also. I think for today I’m satisfied and I’m sure that tomorrow we can improve my rhythm and speed on the R1.”

Alex Lowes - 9th, 1'36.226

“It was a tough day today, I made a mistake in the first session and clipped the inside kerb in turn 12, unfortunately one of the quickest corners. In the second session I had another really fast crash and so missed a lot of track time. It’s been a bit disappointing and I’m a little bit beaten up but I’m ok. The bike actually feels good round here, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow to get back to work on track. We need to take some time to analyse what happened today and why; whether it was just my errors, and what we can do to avoid these in future. . Honestly, as bad as it looks and despite the scrapes and bruises I’m feeling quite good and looking forward to the race tomorrow. I’m reasonably happy with the set up, maybe we will make some small changes but the R1 is nice to ride here . I need to say a big thanks to my team for the work already done today, and the work they are going to have to do to make up for two crashes tonight.”

Paul Denning

“It's been a cold and challenging day for the team here at Assen for different reasons on different sides of the garage. The basic character of the R1 suits the flowing nature of the circuit but to be ready for Michael’s home race we still need to find the best balance in the bike. With two consistent sessions and a lot of laps under his belt the crew is confident of making a good step forward tomorrow. As always Michael, particularly at Assen, and flying the orange colours of his home country, is sure to be pushing as hard as anyone and we are looking forward to a very combative performance. Alex has had an extremely tough day at the office; the fact that he is relatively unscathed is a big relief. Only doing four laps in FP2 is clearly a disadvantage for the race preparations, but let’s see where we are tomorrow. I am confident that over race distance we can turn today’s issues around and get involved in the fight for a good result.”