Andotrans Team Torrentó finishes a complicated second round in Alcañiz
Andotrans Team Torrentó finishes a complicated second round in Alcañiz
The second round of the Spanish Superbike Championship (ESBK) was held this weekend, 15th and 16th April, at Circuito Motorland Aragón in Alcañiz.
A windy weekend made it very difficult to set up the team’s bikes. In the Superbikes category, Oscar Gutiérrez was positioned to fight for the top positions on the grid, but gusts of more than 80km/h made qualifying difficult and he ended up in sixth place. The afternoon was more of the same, with the bike becoming more difficult to handle by the minute. Despite this, Gutiérrez managed to hold on to 6th place and continue to score points.
Supersport Next Generation rookie Harry Khouri also struggled with the wind all day on Saturday, starting the race in thirteenth position. A few hours later he had a bad start which caused him to lose a lot of positions, but despite this he maintained a good pace around the track and managed to move up to fourteenth position to score his first points of the season.
Sunday started with problems for both riders in the warm-up, until a crash for the Australian. The second SBK race of the weekend started at 14:00. The #99 started the race behind the leading riders and lap by lap he was climbing up the podium positions, until a mistake on the penultimate lap condemned him and he dropped back to 6th position.
60 minutes later it was SSNG’s turn and Harry’s turn. A good start from the Australian rider put him in contention for 9th place, but on lap seven he suffered a crash that brought the second round of the season to an end.
The team will now have a month to analyse and improve before the third round of the championship, which will take place on 13th and 14th May at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Cheste.
Ferran Torrentó
Team Manager
It was a strange weekend for the team. Harry scored his first points of the season and the pace was very good, but three crashes, especially the third in the last race, leave us with the feeling that we could have done more. We send him our best wishes because it was a difficult learning weekend.”
“With Oscar it was difficult for us on Saturday with the wind and on Sunday he had a race from less to more, but when he was fighting for the podium a mistake condemned him to sixth place. Now we have to think about the next race in Cheste in less than four weeks’ time.”
