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2011 World Superbike Prep
Official testing continued Thursday for World Superbike teams at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve in Portimao, Portugal. Team Althea Racing Ducati rider Carlos Checa continued to make strong progress despite the wet conditions.
A heavy rain shower meant that there was no track action for the best part of the early morning session.
In the closing stages of the session, just eight riders went out on the wet asphalt, Checa among them, and it was the Spanish rider who recorded the fastest laps of the session on board his Ducati 1198, with some very interesting times, his best a 1m56.1.
Unfortunately more rain prior to the second Superbike session did nothing to improve conditions and riders were clearly not going to be able to improve on yesterday’s times.
Checa nevertheless went out on track, together with the majority of riders, to at least get some track time on rain tyres. In the final stages of the session times dropped slightly but rather than take unnecessary risks, Checa and his team preferred to concentrate on refining the set-up of the 1198.
The Spanish rider thus concluded the second day of testing with the third fastest time.
Carlos Checa (Althea Ducati Superbike) says: "We’ve done a good job and I think the work has provided us with some useful data. Of course we prefer to ride in dry conditions but, having said that, it’s important to ride in the wet too.
"Last season we had very few opportunities to ride in this kind of conditions and so we needed a day like this, to be able to work on the electronics and set-up in rain configuration. I was able to build up confidence so that if we face these conditions later in the season, I’ll be prepared."
Portimao World Superbike Testing Results (day 2): 1. Rea (Honda) 1’54.7; 2. Melandri (Yamaha) 1’55.0; 3. Checa (Ducati) 1’56.1; 4. Guintoli (Ducati) 1’56.5; 5. Smrz (Ducati) 1’56.9; 6. Sykes (Kawasaki) 1’57.2; 7. Laverty (Yamaha) 1’58.1; 8. Haga (Aprilia) 1’58.3
