Lowes And Bassani Take First S...

The bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team duo of Alex Lowes and Axel Bassani joined their rivals on track on the first day of official action at the all-new WorldSBK venue of Balaton Park in Hungary, on Friday 25 July.

Both official bimota KB998 Rimini machines were lapping the newest circuit on the WorldSBK calendar for the first time in full WorldSBK specification. Axel and Alex had ridden the circuit recently on their training bikes - as had many of their peers - but this was their first experience on the circuit on their regular full WorldSBK spec machinery.

This made the opening day at Balaton Park a particularly important one in terms of finding a set up that can be taken forward into the Superpole Qualifying session on Saturday, and then all three races at this new WorldSBK facility.

In the first morning’s Free Practice One session Lowes had been seventh quickest overall, with Bassani 14th quickest. Lowes finished his first day lapping the 4.075km long circuit as the seventh fastest rider overall, while Bassani was 15th fastest across the two opening sessions.

On Saturday 26 July the Balaton Park circuit will host a final free practice session, Superpole Qualifying and then the first of two 21-lap races at the flat and ultra-modern Balaton Park layout.

Alex Lowes stated: “Today was OK, and we had a lot of work to do in two free practice sessions. I know it may sound silly but things like getting the gearing right, then adjusting the electronics to the gearing you are using, means we had to work hard today. We were in and out of the pitbox more often than I would normally have liked to be. We did not get the run of laps that I would have liked. The layout of the track is quite good but it might be difficult to pass in the races. But, I enjoyed the track and we have some ideas to improve the bike set-up for tomorrow. It was a pretty good first day.”

Axel Bassani stated: “Today has been quite good and when I went out in FP1 at least I knew the track layout. The feeling of the bike was the same as Donington, so we are working to try to find something. We are not really so distant from the rider in P5; we are like four tenths away. So, it is not really a lot. We have to understand where we can improve and we will see what we can do for Saturday.”