The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda team and riders Tarran Mackenzie and Zaqhwan Zaidi are on track at Autodrom Most, the stage for WorldSBK round five. After wet conditions on Friday, Mackenzie and Zaidi were able to get in some dry track time during Saturday morning’s final practice. While British rider Tarran made some final tweaks to his CBR1000RR-R ahead of Superpole, setting a 1’32.660, Malaysian rookie Zaqhwan made further gains in terms of lap time, setting a PB of 1’35.323.

The 15-minute Superpole also ran in dry conditions. Tarran unfortunately suffered a crash almost immediately, at Turn 2, which forced him back to the pits. With only time to complete a couple of fast laps in the final stages of this brief phase, the Brit was able to set a best of 1’32.384, a valid qualifying time but only enough to put him twenty-first. A dirty track saw Mackenzie go down again, at turn 21, right at the end of the session but luckily, he walked away unhurt. Teammate Zaidi continued to close the gap to those ahead of him, little by little, setting a fastest time of 1’34.793. This meant that the Malaysian qualified twenty-second for the afternoon’s race.

As a result of the heavy crash at the end of Superpole, and with safety in mind, the team and rider Mackenzie decided not to compete in Race 1 and to focus instead on preparing for Sunday’s Superpole race and second SBK race. Teammate Zaidi got away well when the lights went out and was lying nineteenth by lap two. The Malaysian did his best to manage the race but ultimately retired in the latter stages, citing difficulties relating to arm pump.

Tarran Mackenzie

“A difficult day. We made a change to the bike earlier today that I think can be positive, but we need more time on it. Unfortunately, I had a crash in qualifying, for which I apologise to the team. This evening we’ll try to reset so that we're ready to go again tomorrow.”

Zaqhwan Zaidi

“For some reason, the bike felt difficult to handle in the race today. I tried to manage the race and the pace, but I couldn’t set consistent lap times and was struggling with some arm pump, so it wasn’t easy and, in the end, I decided to pull in. I want to apologise to the team and thank them for all their hard work. Today was not our day, but we’ll work hard to find a fix for tomorrow so that I can feel more comfortable on the bike. It was also very windy today, so hopefully conditions will be better tomorrow.”