The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda team and riders Tarran Mackenzie and Zaqhwan Zaidi dealt with mixed conditions during Friday morning’s first WorldSBK free practice at Autodrom Most. In cool, windy conditions and on a partially wet track, the riders set to work adapting their CBR1000RR-R machines to the Czech track. Malaysian Zaidi has never seen the Most track until now and so faced the added challenging of learning another new circuit. This was made more complicated by the fact that the session was red-flagged four times following incidents involving other riders. Able to at least make the most of the final stages, Mackenzie and Zaidi’s times began to drop, the track as good as dry by this time. A best of 1’33.890 for Mackenzie meant that he placed seventeenth, while Zaidi put in a 1’38.160 to finish twenty-second.

Rain returned just before FP2, which meant that the SBK field faced a full wet track. Many of the riders elected to wait until the asphalt dried a little, Mackenzie included. In need of track time, Zaidi made a brief albeit cautious exit in the first few minutes. Back out on a drying track, the duo continued to work hard in preparation for tomorrow’s Superpole and first race. Tarran soon improved on his FP1 reference, finding another seven tenths to set a fastest time of 1’33.190, while teammate Zaqhwan was able to take a full two seconds off his best of the morning to round out day one with a 1’36.193. These results put the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda riders twentieth and twenty-second in Friday’s combined standings. 

The team will be back out on Saturday for a final practice, Superpole and the first of the weekend’s races.

Tarran Mackenzie #95

“This morning was a bit up and down with the four red flags, but we stayed on the same tyre and luckily it was all ok. It feels strange to ride here again after two years away, especially coming back on a Superbike, but it felt like I made a bit of progress. I then struggled a little bit in FP2. I don’t have the best feeling yet, and so found it difficult to find the lap times. A bit of a shame but we’ll work to find something that can hopefully help us take a good step tomorrow.”

Zaqhwan Zaidi #21

“Today’s practices were strange, and my feeling was mixed to be honest. In the first session, I focused on learning the track, making as many laps as I could. I improved lap by lap, but not my feeling as the conditions were not ideal and I didn’t have the confidence to push. The track is tricky, with some very fast corners, but I’ll do my best to progress. We did that already in FP2 to some extent, and I’m sure that I can do more in tomorrow’s FP3 and Superpole. We hope conditions will be good, and in the meantime a big thanks to the team for all their hard work and support. We’ll keep working!”