MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship action is underway in Portimao with the conclusion of WorldSBK’s FP1 earlier today. Absent from the grid unfortunately is six-time World Champion Jonathan Rea (Pata Maxus Yamaha), who after suffering an ugly high-side crash in Phillip Island, was diagnosed with several fractures on his left foot. In run of more bad luck for Pata Maxus Yamaha, their replacement for Rea, Yamaha MotoGP™ test rider Augusto Fernandez, who had been able to test for the team before the round and performed well, was called back into MotoGP™ service this weekend. In response, Yamaha were forced to find a replacement for their replacement and were able to pick up Jason O’Halloran to fill the space atop their bike alongside Andrea Locatelli (Pata Maxus Yamaha).

It was a Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati), Alvaro Bautisa (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati), Axel Bassani (bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team) top three to start out WorldSBK’s weekend of racing action. Andrea Locatelli (Pata Maxus Yamaha) was the top Yamaha in the session as he finished P11, only 0.141s away from snagging a spot in the top 10. New replacement rider Jason O’Halloran (Pata Maxus Yamaha) is still finding his legs atop the new machinery, and despite his lack of familiarity on the bike, he finished the session only 3.375s behind the scoring positions

Team Principal Paul Denning spoke during Free Practice 1 about Rea’s recovery, how O’Halloran is settling in and superconcession parts, which Yamaha are using for the first time this weekend. These parts are focused on the chassis as Yamaha look to make gains and return to regular podium and victory contention.

On Rea’s injury and its implications until now, Denning said: “Rea’s recovery is going incredibly well considering the extent of the injury, he's throwing everything at it. He'll be back someday and it's a testament of his commitment to this team. It's tough because the body can only heal so fast and it’s a pretty extensive amount of damage to the foot no matter what you throw at it. It's going about as well as we could hope and more; he still can't bear weight on the foot yet, but he can train. We couldn’t ask for more from him but for now he is TBC for Assen.”

Now racing alongside Locatelli is Australian rider O’Halloran. The #20’ has appeared before in WorldSBK for a single race in 2018 with Honda, however the bulk of his racing career has taken place in the British Superbike championship. O’Halloran is replacing Rea despite the original announcement stating it would be Fernandez, the Spaniard was called up for his MotoGP™ duties to replace Miguel Olivera at Prima Pramac Yamaha with the Portuguese out injured.

On the circumstances regarding O’Halloran’s arrival and the outlook for him going forward, Denning said: “Jason won't be testing anything because he's never really sat on the bike, we got so unlucky with Rea's injury, a setback after a strong winter, not a fake level, but a real level of optimism to fight for victories and be around the podium. Then we had the upside if you can find one of Augusto being available to us who was able to test really well for us and is a very high-quality rider before being called back to his day job in MotoGP. This meant that Jason, who is a really capable guy, missed the two days of testing was available but he is on the backfoot with such little time on the bike. So it’s been a run of really unfortunate circumstances starting with JR's crash at Phillip Island so the idea here is to get Jason as comfortable as we can so that in Assen if we happen to need him he will be available.”

Yamaha are eligible for superconcession parts and have opted to start using some on the chassis from the Portuguese Round onwards. Although he didn’t give much away about the benefits and how they’d be used, Denning said about them: “For our superconcessions, there will be modifications to our existing Yamaha R1 frame.”

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