Bridewell gets back up to speed on Friday at Magny-Cours

Superbike Advocates Racing and British rider Tommy use WorldSBK free practice to learn the French track

WorldSBK is back in action at the Nevers Magny-Cours Circuit in France, where rookie team Superbike Advocates Racing has successfully completed Friday’s free practices with rider Tommy Bridewell. The championship resumes after a six-week summer break, with the first practices of this ninth round taking place in very favourable warm and sunny conditions.

Bridewell used the morning’s practice to get comfortable around the French circuit with his race bike. Though Tommy has recently trained at the French track, he has no previous race experience here, and so spent time working with his team to find an effective setup for his Panigale V4 R. Taking advantage of the dry, sunny weather, the rookie team and rider already saw improvement during this opening session. Despite a brief interruption following an incident involving another rider, Bridewell put in an encouraging performance, gradually lowering his lap times to conclude the session in twelfth position with a fastest time of 1’36.601.

The afternoon’s second practice brought progress, in that the British rider was able to find better feeling with his Ducati Superbike. He was not quite able to improve on his best time of the morning, but only because a yellow flag caused his fastest time of the afternoon to be cancelled. Tommy nevertheless placed P15 in the day’s combined standings, for a base on which to build in Saturday’s final practice before attention turns to qualifying and the first of the races making up this French round.

Tommy Bridewell #46

“A good strong day after seven weeks away from my race bike! It felt good right away, similar to where we left off at Donington so that’s good. I feel I have strong pace; I’m just disappointed that I apparently caught a yellow flag which cancelled my fastest lap. Without that, I think I’d have been somewhere around fifth place. Anyway, even if the final result might not look as good, I think we have strong pace and have room to take another step tomorrow, I reckon.”