The Cremona Circuit hosted the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship field for testing this week, with Thursday marking the first WorldSBK track action at the Italian circuit. One rider on track was Iker Lecuona (Team HRC) who made his return from injury, completing 36 laps on Day 1 in the morning before the rain fell as he finished in third place behind Sam Lowes (ELF Marc VDS Racing Team) and Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Team Motocorsa Racing).

Lecuona hasn’t been on a bike since a crash in FP3 at Assen which ruled him out of the remainder of the Dutch Round after he was diagnosed with knee pain and knee functional impairment with the injury also having an impact on his training. After getting half-a-day’s running under his belt, the Spaniard spoke about how he was feeling on the CBR01000RR-R as he finished ahead of teammate Xavi Vierge in the morning, with neither going out in the rain.

Providing an update on his injury, Lecuona said: “I feel quite good. I still don’t feel 100% ready on the knee. I have some hard things inside the knee, and I’ve already checked it with the doctor, and I’ll check it again after Misano. It’s not dangerous but it’s not very comfortable. Overall, I feel quite good. It’s been a lot of time without the bike, even at home I couldn’t ride; I focused on the physical performance. I didn’t have the chance to be on the bike. I’m quite happy about the feeling on the bike.”

Lecuona and HRC opted to only complete the morning session after rain fell during the lunch break, with Lecuona completing 36 laps and Vierge 60. Lecuona’s best time was a 1’30.131s as he lapped around half-a-second slower than pacesetter Lowes, with Vierge another two tenths back from the one-time podium finisher. Despite limited running due to rain, Honda had a good day with strong pace as they look to recover from a disappointing start to 2024.

Reviewing the test, Lecuona added: “It’s not whether I like the track or not. I like the back straight because you can rest. On the main straight it’s impossible. It was fun but very physical. I learnt a lot. We worked a little bit on the bike, trying just the Assen setup. We didn’t want to change properly. I started to feel comfortable on the bike and we started to understand a few things that we changed on the bike so that’s very positive for us.”

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