After the challenging opening day at Portimao, on Portugal’s Algarve coast Team Hero EBR riders Geoff May and Aaron Yates both improved substantially in this morning’s Free Practice 3 to ensure their participation on the grid for tomorrow’s 8th round of the World Superbike Championship.
Qualifying in 24th and 26th respectively both riders are in positive mood as the continued development and enhancements with their EBR1190RX machines continues.
For Geoff, this morning’s session was the first real opportunity for him to ride the improved engine, and after only managing a few exploratory laps in FP2 yesterday was visibly pleased with the huge steps forward.
Aaron was equally buoyant after he too improved considerably, albeit using the previous engine configuration.
Tomorrow’s races will be tough but with things clearly now moving in the right direction, the mood within the garage and the outlook on the second half of the season is certainly brighter.
Geoff May – “This morning is by far the best session of the year. We are only 3.8s from the fastest guy after 29 laps for the whole weekend, so it’s a bit like a win to be honest. The new engine is showing promise and I am really excited for the rest of the season now. I am expecting good things at Laguna based on today.”
Aaron Yates – “FP3 went well and we are heading in the right direction. I put a new tyre in at the end of the session and made some set-up changes but that was the wrong way. We have a few other things to try before the races like optimising the gearing but we hope to have the bike as good as we can for the races.”