Mackenzie and Norrodin take on WorldSBK race 1 at Phillip Island
PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda riders Tarran Mackenzie and Adam Norrodin have completed their very first WorldSBK race as full-time entries in the 2024 Superbike World Championship, taking place at the Phillip Island Circuit in Australia this weekend.
The riders were out for a short final practice during the morning, in which they made additional modifications to the bike setup before returning to the track for the 15-minute Superpole, which ran as scheduled at 1pm local time (CET+10). A best of 1’31.133 for Tarran meant that the Brit qualified in twenty-first position for Race 1, while Adam set a quickest time of 1’31.888 to place twenty-second.
The first full-length Superbike race of the season got underway in cool and cloudy conditions at 4pm local time (CET+10). It was a race of two halves, with all riders obliged to make a pitstop and change tyres mid-way through the action. With Tarran and Adam lining up on rows seven and eight of the grid, both got away well and made up a couple of positions over the first few laps, with the Brit placing seventeenth and the Malaysian nineteenth by lap five. Both riders pitted to change their tyres on lap ten, with Norrodin gaining a little ground as they returned to the track, lapping just in front of team-mate Mackenzie. Lying nineteenth and twentieth, the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda riders held these positions to the line after exchanging places in the final stages.
The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team will be back out at Phillip Island tomorrow for the Superpole race and final 20-lap race of the weekend.
Tarran Mackenzie WorldSBK Rider #95
"I struggled this morning, and in yesterday’s Superpole to be honest, and I really wanted to make a more dramatic change to the bike in order to be able to make a comparison, good or bad. So we did that for today’s race and I immediately improved on my lap times when the race got underway. I felt good on new tyres, and the first part of the race went well, but then I had more trouble in the second half. I made a small mistake during the pitstop which caused me to lose a little time, so I’ll try to improve on that tomorrow. Hopefully we can use tomorrow’s warm-up to understand a little more and then we’ll do our best to improve in the two races, of course."
Adam Norrodin WorldSBK Rider #27
"The first race was tough, but I want to thank my whole team as the tyre change went smoothly and everyone’s worked really hard. In the first part of the race I was setting quite good lap times, a little faster than my previous references, but in the second half I started to struggle physically and couldn’t really keep up the pace. At least we completed the race and collected more data, so now we’ll try to use that to our advantage to prepare and improve in Sunday’s races."
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