The Autódromo Internacional do Algarve in Portugal is the stage for the second round of the 2025 Superbike World Championship, in which the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team is fielding riders Tarran Mackenzie and Zaqhwan Zaidi.

The weekend’s opening practice took place in dry, sunny conditions on Friday morning. Mackenzie made an encouraging start, harnessing the data collected during testing to make adjustments to the electronics on his CBR1000RR-R. Setting a series of interesting lap times, the British rider set a best of 1’42.167 to place a solid fourteenth at the end of this first session. Rookie Zaidi used the opening session to get to grips with this tricky circuit in dry conditions, considering that this is the first time he is competing here and that the recent test took place largely in wet and mixed conditions. Making fifteen laps in all during the 45 minutes available to him, the Malaysian set a fastest time of 1’45.311 to place twenty-first.

Finding another half second already in the early stages of the afternoon’s FP2, Zaqhwan continued to work with his technicians to learn the secrets to this undulating circuit. Continuing with his step-by-step approach, the Malaysian made further progress during the course of the session, closing twenty-third with a time of 1’44.771. After making a few modifications to his bike during the course of the afternoon’s session, Tarran took a step forward in the latter stages. His best time, a 1’41.904, meant that he rounded out day one in eighteenth position in the aggregate standings. 

Zaqhwan Zaidi #21

“It’s really tough here, a very challenging rollercoaster layout here, and we need to understand the flow and learn the best way to ride. Here, if you make a mistake through one corner, you then condition the rest of the lap as it’s all connected. So, it’s not easy, but I’m improving my feeling with the bike. We’re improving day by day and are slowly closing the gap, which is good, but for sure it’s not enough yet. I need to continue working hard, to understand how to work with the bike and the team – I’m very happy with the team by the way, they’re really helping me. The test we had was useful in helping me learn a new track, but the conditions were not so good, very different to how it is here now. I have more confidence to push now that the conditions are hotter. Tomorrow we’ll try something a bit different with the setup and we’ll see if that can take us on in the right direction.” 

Tarran Mackenzie #95

“I think we took the biggest step this morning. The recent test we had here was useful chassis-wise but we got to the end of that test thinking it was more the electronics that could help us. So, we made quite a big change to the electronics coming into this weekend, and I can say I felt a bit more comfortable. The modification made it a bit easier to ride, allowing me to ride more the way I like. And then, after trying a few things at the start of the afternoon session that didn’t really work, we took another step towards the end, which was positive. It’s nice to be more in the mix; let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”