Round six of the Superbike World Championship has now drawn to a close at the Barcelona-Catalunya track in Spain but unfortunately the races did not bring the expected results for Team HRC.

The promising feedback Alvaro Bautista got from the latest improvements made to the bike’s setup was confirmed by his strong performance in the early stages of this morning’s Superpole race. The Spaniard set the new race record lap and had just moved into the lead when he was stopped in his tracks by a violent highside heading into Turn 4, an incident that ruled him out of the race on lap 3. Bautista was taken to the medical centre but was passed fit, having sustained a non displaced fifth metatarsal fracture.

Teammate Leon Haslam was blamelessly involved in an incident on lap 2 when another rider hit him, causing both riders of the riders involved to crash at Turn 10. Haslam was taken to the medical centre as a result but was also passed fit, having suffered contusions to his left thigh.

Race 2 got underway in dry conditions later in the afternoon. But while Haslam lined up in eleventh place on the grid, Bautista was unfortunately unable to start after his bike came to a stop during the sighting lap due to an electrical problem.
Ninth through the opening laps, Haslam lost a little ground from lap five onwards, placing eleventh on lap six. Back up to tenth by lap ten, the Brit passed Lowes on lap sixteen to move into ninth place. Battling with Lowes through the final stages, the Team HRC rider ultimately crossed the line in ninth place.

In the championship standings, Bautista now places eighth with 94 points, while Haslam has moved into tenth position with 88 points. Team HRC will return to the tracks over the weekend of 2-4 October for the penultimate championship round taking place at the French circuit of Magny-Cours.


Alvaro Bautista 19 - SPRC DNF | RC2 DNS

“Today’s been a bittersweet day. In this morning’s warm-up I was pleased with how the bike was working because we were able to fix the setup issue we had yesterday, and our feeling was a lot better. In the Superpole race I moved into the lead, the first time we’ve been able to do that, which means we are continuing to improve. I was feeling so good on the bike and to be out front again that perhaps I was a little overconfident and pushed a bit too hard, which resulted in a crash. A pity. Physically I wasn’t feeling good ahead of race 2 but I when I jumped on my bike, I saw I was able to ride despite my foot injury. The pain was not too bad. But then the bike stopped on the sighting lap and so I didn’t have chance to compete at all. We’re looking into what the problem was. It was a pity because we had good pace also for race 2 and could have battled with the frontrunners in both the day’s races. Anyway, we will take the positives of this weekend. I’m happy with the job we are doing and with our steps forward and now we’ll see if we can make the most of the final two rounds and score the kind of results we deserve.”

Leon Haslam 91 - SPRC DNF | RC2 9th

“A tough day for us. We made a bad start in the Superpole race and although my feeling was OK over the first lap, I was then hit from behind and crashed with Caricasulo. At first I thought I might have broken my leg but luckily that wasn’t the case and I was just very stiff in my lower body. After another bad start in race 2, my pace was not too bad and I was starting to catch some other riders. We had a good battle with Lowes, but then a small mistake in the final stages meant I eventually finished ninth. It was a tough race and I had some arm pump due to a lack of mobility following the crash, but we have made some steps forward if we consider the entire weekend. It’s just a pity about the actual race results because we had the potential to run top five today. Anyway, we move on to Magny-Cours and will try our best again there.”