The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team is at Estoril Circuit for the penultimate round of the 2024 Superbike World Championship, with Tarran Mackenzie once again joined in the garage by Portuguese rider Ivo Lopes this weekend, who substitutes for injured Adam Norrodin. 

On a Friday characterized by heavy rain, Mackenzie and Lopes were on track for the morning’s first practice in full wet conditions. Owing to these conditions, the 45-minute session was red-flagged a little over ten minutes but soon resumed, with both PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda riders working hard as their confidence grew on the slippery asphalt. Mackenzie, who has a certain affinity for the wet weather conditions, played a starring role in this opening practice, the British rider continuing to lower his times and work his way up the timesheets. A crash with two minutes to go prevented Tarran from doing more, but he nevertheless set a best of 1’52.994 to place an impressive fourth as FP1 drew to a close. Lopes, who is quite literally ‘at home’ at the Estoril track, made good progress throughout this opening session, setting a fastest time of 1’55.671 to position nineteenth. The local rider was potentially prevented from doing more after he suffered a crash through Turn 7 with just five minutes left to go. 

Both PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda riders were back on track a few hours later, their respective technicians having worked hard to repair the damage caused to the bikes in the FP1 crashes. The second practice began in dry conditions, meaning that Mackenzie and Lopes set about identifying an effective dry setup in preparation for the weekend’s races. Exploiting his knowledge of the track, Portuguese rider Ivo was able to set a series of interesting lap times early on in the session, the best of which in 1’39.428. Rain then returned during the second half of the practice, ruling out any further improvement, which meant that Lopes rounded out the day in seventeenth position in the combined standings. After doing well in the wet, Mackenzie had a more challenging time in the dry conditions of FP2 as he worked to iron out a few technical issues with his team. A best reference of 1’41.157, set at the start of the practice, saw him position twenty-third overall. 

Ivo Lopes P17

“It’s great to be riding here at home but the conditions were of course not ideal today, with rain and wind for FP1. Despite that, the session didn’t go too badly for me, and I was able to gradually improve in the wet conditions. It seemed less of a struggle than at Magny-Cours for example. Then FP2 ran in very different conditions, dry but on a still damp track. I was able to push anyway, and I like the bike, although there are areas where we can improve of course. The second session went better for sure, but I know we can do more tomorrow if we keep working hard.” 

Tarran Mackenzie P23

“I haven’t been to Estoril for more than a decade, so first I had to re-learn the track, which I don’t mind doing in the rain actually. I ended up having really good feeling and felt free to play with the bike a bit. I ended up fourth and although I had a little crash, I know what I did wrong. So that session was good for my confidence more than anything. In FP2 we had a problem on the out lap that caused us to lose a chunk of time. When we went back out, I had a different electronics issue and just as we worked out how to sort that, the rain came, so not ideal. Anyway, this weekend’s about making steps after changes we made at Aragón and at least if it rains again over the weekend, we’ll have a direction to go in. I’m looking forward to tomorrow whatever the conditions; let’s see what we can do.”