Phillip Island, Australia
The Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team has contested the opening race of the 2017 FIM Superbike World Championship today at Phillip Island, with Nicky Hayden and Stefan Bradl finishing eleventh and fifteenth respectively.
Hayden launched from eleventh place on the grid and was immediately eighth on board his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP2 machine as the World Superbike field entered turn one. The 35-year-old from Owensboro, Kentucky, kept himself in the fight for eighth place until the final three laps when, after losing a bit of ground, he returned eleventh at the flag.
Bradl gained three positions at the start and for the first half of the encounter he did his best to maintain the pace of the riders ahead. The 27-year-old German rider managed to remain within the top 15 and to score his first World Superbike point.
The second race of the Australian round will take place tomorrow at 15:00hrs local time, after the traditional 15-minute warm up session that will get underway at 11:25. The new rules concerning the grid for race two will be applied for the first time tomorrow, with Hayden and Bradl starting the encounter from twelfth and fifteenth positions, respectively.
Nicky Hayden 69
11th
We made some important changes to the setup today in order to be as ready as possible for the race. I got a really good start and I was able to stay with the group for a while and learn as much as possible. There were a few parts of the track where I was able to be really quick, but as the race progressed I got passed several times on the main straight and it was hard to take the position back. Surely we would have like to be closer to the front, it’s surely a lot more fun there but there’s another race tomorrow, so we’ll see what we can do.
Stefan Bradl 6
15th
My first World Superbike race has not been an easy one. We were strong on the brakes and that’s a positive, but if there is one point we need to work on ahead of race two is the connection between the throttle and the behaviour of the rear tyre, which was spinning a lot. I could feel the tyre in the opening laps, but as the laps went by the situation got a bit more problematic. We improved compared to testing but something is still clearly not right, so we have to work on it and come up with some ideas ahead of race two.
Pieter Breddels
Both riders got a great start to the race and were able to make up some places and for a good number of laps their pace was not so bad. For half of the race the first twelve riders were within 2.8s and until the final stages, Nicky managed to stay with in mix for eighth place. Stefan had more of a difficult time, but in any case we got some important data and we will work hard to be ready for race two tomorrow. We have few ideas in mind and hopefully we can make good use of the warm up to see if we can move forwards.
