“The day was much better than it looks on paper,” said Hannes Soomer (Kallio Racing, Yamaha) who had the 13th time in the Free Practices of the sixth round of the Supersport World Championship in Barcelona, Spain today.

Today's Free Practices took place in changing weather conditions: it was dry in the morning, but in the afternoon the track was basically wet. Soomer is on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for the first time, so today's two Free Practices were spent exploring the track. “It's a nice circuit, there's a lot I like here. For example, long endless curves with quick entrances, which are similar to Audruring at home and which should be my strength,” Soomer described.

Much of FP1 was spent learning the track, at the end of which Soomer drove 13th time, being 1,180 seconds slower than the fastest Lucas Mahias (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing). During FP2, the track was half-wet and Soomer did the first two laps on rain tires, but then came into the pit and went to do a fast lap with slicks only 10 minutes before the end of the session. The result of this session was a time of 1,005 seconds behind the fastest, Soomer's teammate Isaac Vinales.

“The feeling of the bike was good and we will probably not make any big changes tomorrow, because the weather will be cloudy or rainy as it was today,” said Soomer.

The qualification of the World SSP takes place on Saturday at 12:40 Estonian time, the first race at 16:15, the second race is on Sunday at 13:30.

Before the sixth round, Soomer holds the 10th position at the World Championships with 50 points.

Photo: sp8images