The MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship’s visit to the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve was a fruitful one for Honda and Team HRC, with both Xavi Vierge and Iker Lecuona able to fight inside the top ten during the round. Vierge twice recorded a finish in the top ten positions while Lecuona’s weekend was compromised by a crash in the Tissot Superpole session but, despite that, he was able to make progress throughout the field.

In Friday’s running, Vierge set a 1’41.112s to claim top Honda honours by just 0.007s ahead of his teammate with the pair in 11^th and 12^th respectively. In Superpole, Vierge secured 13^th on the Race 1 grid with a best time of 1’40.592s. The #97 finished 13^th in Race 1, 16 seconds away from race winner Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) and just a couple away from the top ten. In the Tissot Superpole Race, Vierge secured P7 to give him a third row start for Race 2 before backing that up with ninth in the final race of the weekend.

Reviewing Sunday’s action, Vierge said: "We’re happy with how our Sunday has gone, finally a solid day. Already at Most, I felt that we had a bit more potential, but we just weren’t able to fully realise it, a bit like yesterday when we were missing something. We worked so hard with the team after Saturday’s race, making changes to the bike setup for the Superpole Race and then more changes for Race 2. The strategy worked well enough, and at least gave me the opportunity to fight with the others a little more. We are still struggling with acceleration but now we are able to at least compensate for that in braking and corner entry. Knowing how important it was to gain positions in the Superpole Race, I did my best to start well and move as far inside the top ten as possible. P7 gave us a third row start for Race 2. Of course, that race was tougher, especially after ten laps when we were always on the limit. But we fought hard, all the way to the last corner, enjoyed a good battle, and completed a solid Sunday. I’m very happy with that, and with the small gains we’ve been making lately. As I said yesterday, it’s like a breath of fresh air that spurs us on.”

Lecuona’s weekend was disrupted by a Superpole crash at Turn 14 which left him last on the grid, but he was able to salvage points in both Race 1 and Race 2. He valiantly fought his way into 12^th in Saturday’s race, directly ahead of his teammate, before finishing in 13^th in Race 2 to make sure he left Portugal with some reward after showing strong pace but crashing in Superpole.

Owning up to the crashes and praising Honda’s speed at Portimao, Lecuona said: “After the race, I told my team that I was the first to mess up our weekend, with Superpole. Anyway, that’s racing; it happens when you’re trying to give your very best, and it happened to me. I want to apologise to the team, because we really had good speed here. We made a good comeback in Race 1, and then today we tried something different for the Superpole race that I wasn’t totally happy with, but it was meant to work in the slow corners. We kept working and made further adjustments for Race 2. I made a good start in that race, but then for the first few laps, I was kind of blocked. I couldn’t really find a consistent level of performance until around mid-race. At that point, when the tyres dropped off a bit and the fuel load lightened, I started to be much faster and more consistent. Especially over the last seven laps, I was able to close in on the group ahead, make a few passes, and finish inside the points. Of course, the position is what it is, but my speed in the second half and the fact we were able to score a few points and stay focused gives me good motivation for the upcoming test at Estoril. Let’s see what happens over the next few days.”

Follow all the WorldSBK action throughout 2024 in style using the WorldSBK VideoPass – now 50% off!