Cornering issue holds van der Mark back in race one

Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark managed to salvage a seventh place finish in race one following a tricky start to Saturday, but admits he struggled to get his R1 turned as the race wore on.

The Dutch rider suffered a mechanical failure in this morning’s final practice, and was unhappy with the balance of his bike when on the qualifying tyre in the closing stages of Superpole. As a result, he could only manage ninth with a 1m47.685s.

Getting a reasonable start, van der Mark engaged in a battle with team-mate Alex Lowes and Milwaukee Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty. The Dutchman was able to get past the pair of them and eventually went on to finish seventh.

“This morning in FP3, we had some problems with the bike but at the end we fixed the problems and I felt quite good,” he said.

“I did a good lap in SP2 on the race tyre, then on the qualifier I didn’t feel very happy on the bike and I had to fight a lot with my R1.

“I had a pretty normal start and was in a group with some other riders, and at the end I passed Laverty.”

As the race progressed, van der Mark felt his pace was continuously improving. However, he was held back from moving further through the field by a difficulty in getting his Yamaha turned.

Despite this, van der Mark reckons the team can be happy with seventh after such a difficult weekend, and feels his consistency towards the end of a race will see him in good stead tomorrow coming from fourth on the grid, providing his cornering issues are resolved.

“I felt like I was getting stronger and stronger towards the end, but I struggled a lot with turning the bike,” he added.

“We have to solve this problem to make the bike easier to ride at this style of track. I think starting from ninth we must be happy with the points we scored; everyone can see it is a difficult weekend for us, so every point we score we must be happy with.

“Usually my race pace is quite consistent, and especially at this track you can see some riders struggle more and more with grip as the race goes on.

“I know at the end of the race I can be strong, so hopefully tomorrow we can stay closer to the front group at the start and catch some riders at the end.”