After persistent rain overnight, the SBK field took to a wet track for Saturday morning’s practice. Despite the conditions, Tarran Mackenzie and Portuguese rider Ivo Lopes, who continues to stand in for Adam Norrodin, ventured out onto the slippery track to better understand and refine the wet setting of their CBR1000RR-R ahead of a potentially wet Superpole and first race. Tarran and Ivo placed eleventh and fifteenth at the end of this final preparatory phase. 

Although the rain stayed away, the track was still wet when the SBK field returned to the track for the all-important Superpole. Mackenzie demonstrated strong pace right from lap one, the Brit confident in the mixed conditions just as he has proved to be in the past. Lapping inside the top ten from start to finish, Tarran continuously improved on his lap times. His best lap, set in 1’53.796, came in the final seconds of this 15-minute phase and was enough to secure him a spot on the third row of the grid, in eighth position, for the afternoon’s first race. Home rider Lopes was also able to pick up the pace as the track gradually began to dry, but failed to find the kind of feeling he was looking for in the mixed conditions. A fastest time of 1’58.107 meant that Ivo rounded out the session in twenty-second position. 

Although rain fell shortly before Race 1, the track had almost dried by the time the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda riders took to the grid. This did not benefit Mackenzie who, more at ease in the wet, slipped from eighth on the grid to sixteenth through the first corners after having a small technical issue. Battling as part of a small group, Tarran struggled to maintain a sufficiently fast pace, the Brit losing ground to his closest rivals and finding himself eighteenth at the mid-race point. Unable to make up any positions considering the gaps that had opened up, Mackenzie held eighteenth to the line. From row eight, Lopes worked hard to get into a consistent rhythm that allowed him to make up four positions in the first seven laps. Keen to obtain a strong result at his home track, wildcard Ivo continued to fight, progressing to P16 with eight laps to go. With the points zone in his sights, the Portuguese rider did well to cross the line fifteenth and score his very first Superbike championship point. 

Ivo Lopes P15

“Yesterday we had good feeling in the dry FP2, but this morning the track was wet, and I didn’t get on so well in those conditions in practice or qualifying. Race 1 ran in the dry though, and honestly, I didn’t do so badly, even scoring my first championship point. I think I can do more actually, as I now understand the bike better now, so hopefully we can take another step tomorrow. It’s been great today though, racing here at home in Estoril, and I want to say a big thank you to the team and to everyone who’s here supporting me; it’s so important to me.” 

Tarran Mackenzie P18

“We made a couple of laps in the rain in FP3 and I didn’t have the best feeling but then it rained again before Superpole, and I was able to put together my best qualifying of the season. I made a good push towards the end of the session and finish P8. It was great to be lining up on the third row, the only problem was that I’d only had about two laps of dry riding time before today’s dry Race 1, so I was going into it pretty blind. I had a little issue off the line, which we can fix for tomorrow but it meant that I didn’t get a great start and I then went backwards quite quickly. It was useful to follow Ivo for a time, considering how well he knows the Estoril track, so I learned a lot from him but then struggled with the bike in the latter stages. Having missed the test, it was almost like a first practice in the dry for me, so hopefully we can use what we learned today to be more in the mix tomorrow. I’m nevertheless pleased with how qualifying went and how I’m riding in the rain. We’ll try again tomorrow.”