Three weeks after an encouraging but badly ended weekend in Barcelona we go to Albacete for the rest of Europe Superbike championship.
Albacete is a technical circuit, many physical challenges because there are few straight lines and the heat is often extreme.
We finally received a new version of the shock and we very much hope.
Michelin proposes two types of hard front tires with different carcasses and profiles and to the rear, the soft, the medium and the hard medium asymmetrical.
The quantities of tires available do not allow us to test the soft and the medium hard, 3 tires for two days of testing, two qualifications a warm-up and two races!
We will do all the testing using medium tire, the only one in sufficient quantities.
Thursday free practice.
We resume our usual protocol with a first run with a bike very similar to that of Barcelona. Pierre is immediately at ease.
The new rear shock is mounted to the second session. Pierre feels no major change but on the computer we see a potential gain towards the direction of interest.
Pierre lacks of grip, it is usual here, but especially at the front which greatly limits its performance.
He tries the new type of front tire, it is not completely convinced but choses to continue with.
We spend all day working on solving his corner entry troubles, with limited success.
The collected data are analyzed and four amendments are defined, some aiming specific problems, others more general.
For the record, two other solutions ideas, one wich could improve our two biggest handicaps, will be found during the return trip, too bad.
Friday free practice.
The most global solution is applied, it requires half an hour of work and so can not be restored during the session.
It works! Pierre find confidence in its front end, the lap times gets down :-)
We then apply the second modification to the geometry that also goes in the right direction.
Four soft tires are available for each driver, we decide to do few laps in the afternoon to assess their interest in qualifying.
Unsurprisingly, Pierre prefers the softer, especially in the first two laps where the grip is excellent. It is decided, we will run the first qualifying with soft tire.
The third solution, which requires one hour of work is applied in turn, it will be evaluated in qualifying.
Saturday, qualifying.
Also ranking on the grid this session will serve us to evaluate the lifetime of a soft tire on twenty laps.
We can not make a race simulation because we still have electronic settings to be validated; Also it really is very hot and we want to save the rider.
Pierre rushes with the tire of the previous day then returns to adjust the settings and pass a new soft rear tire.
He has two to three laps to make his time before the grip disappears. While in a time that would have given him the fourth place he suddenly slides from the rear in the last corner and loses half a second.
He is seventh and he can no longer improve, it remains only to do laps according to plan.
The status of the rear tire after twelve rounds leaves us no doubt, it became too hot and already have missing little pieces, a soft tire can not hold a race.
There was a clash between two drivers ranked ahead of Pierre in the championship, one has multiple fractures and other milder injuries that allow him to compete in the races.
We have two tire stickers and the medium and hard tire for testing in the afternoon. The temperature rises again, the track exceeds sixty degrees.
There is little chance of improvement in these conditions, all drivers will work to prepare for the race.
Pierre rushes with a new medium tire for a few laps in order to have a basis for comparison. Then we mount the new asymmetric tire to complete the session.
he will be the only rider to improve his lap time while the two fastest ones lose 1.4 seconds.
Unfortunately a small mistake in the fuel management will force it to return prematurely when he was still improved his first sector of two tenths of a second.
He ranks 5th in the session and 6th in combined.
Once again the asymmetric tire medium hard is more appropriate to our bike, in pure performance as over time.
If the temperature conditions forces everyone to ride with this tire Pierre may consider a podium.
We do not know however what performance level to expect from this tire in cooler conditions. We'll therefore try it during warm-up.
Sunday, the warm-up and races.
There is a bit of wind and the track is cooler, 26° anyway :-)
The warm-up is going well, nothing deters us from using this tire for the first race.
The Superbike class opens the show with a first race at 11 AM. The track conditions are similar to those of the first qualifying.
We are certainly the only hard tire on the grid. If the end of the race does not worry us, the beginning seems a bit complicated. It will need six laps for the tire to get its optimal temperature.
Starting from the second line is quite comfortable, the offset between the lines leaves a passage in front but Pierre is completely on the right side in the dirty part of the track.
The start is good but does he not gain positions, Pierre is careful in the first corner and incisive in the following sequence, he comes out in the fifth.
As expected it slides a lot of the rear during the early laps, he opts for defensive trajectories and delay his braking at maximum to contain his pursuers.
In the fourth lap Pierluigi crashes in front of Pierre and leaves him the fourth place.
In the ninth lap Plassen is put off the track by Medina at the straight line braking, an unacceptable behavior at this level of competition. Pierre has now two opponents in pursuit.
In the eleventh lap Pierre misses a bit the straight entering, Medina stands at his height and tries to overtake at braking. It fails to take the rope of the first turn and hits Pierre voluntarily.
He has to calm down!
Pierre is then fifth, Medina is a bit faster and walks away slowly. Maybe the hard tires will allow Pierre to return in a few laps.
Behind Makinen lost two seconds, but he remains in the same rhythm as Pierre, no way to relax.
Finally gaps are widening in front and behind and Pierre crosses the finish line in fifth position.
The video of the first race can be watched here. Unfortunately, the comments were deleted when cutting.
The twenty laps were demanding for the drivers, Pierre must recover for the next race in two hours.
We're not changing any settings and just hope that the temperature will rise enough to force everyone to use the hard tire.
We take the opportunity to watch the moto 2 race, always dramatic.
It's almost time for the second race. The wind is still there and the track temperature does not rise as high as we hoped.
Here we go again for a similar scenario. The hard tire is really not beneficial in the early laps, he will have to resist.
We meet a last minute problem with the front brake protection that turns. The fastening system is jammed and we lose many minutes to fix it when the pit lane is already opened!
Fortunately our new pit trail is easy to roll because we will go running thrue the whole stands.
There are two holes on the grid, one next to Pierre and the other behind. Plassen is checked in the hospital and Climent, injured in qualification fell again in first race and is clearly no longer roadworthy.
Pierre takes a decent start, doesn't take risks in the first corner and then begins a duel with the Argentine Pierluigi. Pierre is fifth behind Pierluigi, widening gap with his pursuers.
He often has difficult end of races, Pierre waits for the good moment.
Scheib fall and actually enjoy the whole plateau of an additional place.
The brake protection turns and just block his arm or relies on the fairing and prevents direction turn...
The race is quite monotonous with gaps between the front drivers.
In the sixteenth lap Pierre increase the pace and glue together to his predecessor who begins to make mistakes and fails to fight to keep his position. Pierre is now fourth, he must stay here now.
In the last lap the brake protection ends up falling completely and Pierre loses his feelings on the throttle, he narrowly avoids a big fall and lose a lot of time, fortunately nobody take advantage and he crosses the line in fourth position.
His best ranking in Superbike. The podium is six seconds ahead.
The second race video can watched here. Unfortunately, the comments were deleted when cutting.
We thank our partners KART System, LS2, Pam Racing, Louit moto and Poupiz Performance.