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Friday at Misano brings challenges for Mackenzie and Norrodin

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On track at the Misano World Circuit, PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda riders Tarran Mackenzie and Adam Norrodin have completed the first sessions making up round four of the Superbike World Championship in twenty-first and twenty-fourth place respectively.

The day’s first practice making up this fourth WorldSBK Championship round ran mid-morning in warm and sunny conditions. Making use of data collected during last month’s test at the same Misano track, the riders and their respective technicians worked to identify an effective set-up for their CBR1000RR-R bikes. The session was soon halted after an problem for another rider necessitated a red flag. Heading back out a few minutes later, both Mackenzie and Norrodin worked hard to build feeling and confidence around the Italian track, although a few technical challenges hindered their progress during this first phase. A 1’35.930 for Tarran saw him place twenty-second, followed by team-mate Adam, twenty-fourth with a time of 1’37.399.

The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda duo was back out later in the afternoon for second practice. On a much hotter track, Mackenzie soon improved on his best time of the morning and continued to do so throughout the session after making a few changes to his bike. A best of 1’35.105, set in the final stages, saw the British rider place twenty-first in the combined standings. Norrodin made progress with respect to this morning but could not lower his lap time, which leaves the Malaysian twenty-fourth and keen to find more in order to be able to move closer to his teammate.

Tarran Mackenzie WorldSBK Rider #95

"FP2 went a lot better than the morning’s session after we went back to a setting we’d used during the recent test. Testing here was strange and saw us making a series of changes following a few problems, which meant we weren’t riding the same bike the whole time. So, for this afternoon, we went back to basics and changed a couple of little things that made the difference, allowing me to set my best lap time and move closer to those in front. We end the day in a positive way and hopefully we can go back out tomorrow and continue to improve as we prepare for Race 1."

Adam Norrodin WorldSBK Rider #27

"I’m working with a new crew chief this weekend and we tried something different in FP1 but it didn’t work. We then made quite a big change for FP2 which helped me to improve the feeling but for some reason the lap times are not coming. Honestly, I know that there are still things I need to improve personally speaking, so that’s my target for tomorrow, while in terms of the bike, we’re still missing something on corner exit. We’ll continue to work on this, but it all takes time of course. Let’s see if we can take another step already tomorrow."