BbKRT All Ready For Round Ten ...

Alex Lowes and Axel Bassani will get back into full race action in a few days’ time as the tenth round of the FIM Superbike World Championship gets underway at the longest circuit on the current calendar, Motorland Aragon.

Both bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team riders have had a chance to test their KB998 Rimini machines since the ninth round of the series at Magny-Cours in early September, at the same venue where the season finale will be run, the Circuito de Jerez - Ángel Nieto.

The BbKRT squad has already taken part in a test session at Motorland in late August, which means that much of the pre-race preparations for race weekend have been completed ahead of the first track action, which will begin on Friday, 26 September.

After the two free practice sessions on day one, the WorldSBK riders will then face FP3, Superpole Qualifying, and a full distance 18-lap Race One on Saturday, 27 September; followed by a ten-lap Superpole Race and full distance Race Two on Sunday, 28 September.

Motorland is a multi-use motorsport facility in the ‘high desert’ of the historic Aragon region of Spain. At 5.077 kilometres in length - in its current configuration - it is not only the longest circuit that WorldSBK races at but also features two significant straights. The back straight, which leads into the final two corners, is over 1 kilometre in length.

As the start of the final quarter in the debut WorldSBK season for the bimota KB998 Rimini machine approaches at Motorland, Alex sits an improved seventh in the overall rankings, with 144 points. Axel also enhanced his championship position at the most recent round, by two positions, and now occupies ninth place overall, with 99 points to his credit.

After the stand-alone Motorland Aragon round this coming weekend, there will be one free weekend before the season provides an intense big finish, thanks to consecutive race weekends at first the Circuito Estoril in Portugal and then the Circuito de Jerez - Ángel Nieto in Spain.

Alex Lowes stated: “I’m really focused on enjoying our weekend in Motorland. We know that our target is to get the maximum from me and our package. We don’t know what our results can be, so we have to work well from FP1 on Friday, have a good plan, and then see where we are. We need to be patient on certain parts of the track and use the KB998’s strengths in the other parts. That is our target for the weekend.”

Axel Bassani stated: “We will soon arrive in Motorland Aragon, where we have already had a test in August. It was honestly not really good there, because I finished the test without the best feeling and I was not as fast as I wanted to be. But, the race weekend is always something different and we never give up. I think we can do a good job and what we will do is for sure try to finish all three races inside the top ten and that will be our goal. It may be difficult because there are two long straights and for us this is maybe not the best. We will fight, like always, to give our best in every session and then see what happens.”