During Satuday’s first race of the weekend in Portugal, the 27-year-old WorldSBK rookie endured a hard time due to unexpected grip issues.
After Jonas Folger finished Friday’s free practice sessions at the Circuito do Estoril not far from Portugal’s capital Lisbon with a strong ninth place overall, the Bavarian was able to improve further on a sunny Saturday morning. The BMW rider was able to better his fastest lap from the first free practice session in FP3 by 0.281 seconds, but his rivals also made improvements, so this putting him in twelfth position.
During the 15-minutes long Superpole session, Folger did it better again and was more than half a second faster than this morning. In the end, he and his Bonovo Action / MGM Racing Performance team finished in 13th place. Folger, however, started the first race in the afternoon from the fourth row of the grid, eleventh on the grid, as several other riders were given a penalty. In the race, however, he struggled right from the start. After three laps he found himself racing in 18th position but was still able to work his way up to P16 in which he came home finally.
#94 Jonas FOLGER (Bonovo Action / MGM Racing Performance, BMW M 1000 RR), Grid position 11th / P16 +46.472
“Today, unfortunately, things did not go so well. First, in Superpole I did not manage to get that one hot lap together perfectly and then, the race in the afternoon was really difficult. I had trouble getting out of the corners and struggled with grip issues everywhere. I gave it my all, but unfortunately, I was not fast enough so that I could follow anyone. It is a shame because we were doing well yesterday but unfortunately, we could not transform that performance into the race. Now we have to see what the problem was so we that can be in a better position to attack tomorrow again.”
#EstorilWorldSBK - Superpole:
1 Jonathan REA / GBR / Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK / Kawasaki ZX-10RR / 1´36.876
2 Scott REDDING / GBR / Aruba.it Racing - Ducati / Ducati Panigale V4 R / 1´36.047 +0.171
3 Alex LOWES / GBR / Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK / Kawasaki ZX-10RR / 1´36.054 +0.178
13 #94 Jonas FOLGER / GER / Bonovo Action MGM Racing Performance / BMW M 1000 RR / 1´37.128 +1.252
#EstorilWorldSBK - Race 1:
1 Scott REDDING / GBR / Aruba.it Racing – Ducati / Ducati Panigale V4 R / 34´08.039
2 Toprak RAZGATLIOGLU / TUR / Pata Yamaha with BRIXX WorldSBK / Yamaha YZF R1 / +0.877
3 Jonathan REA / GBR / Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK / Kawasaki ZX-10RR / +0.915
16 #94 Jonas FOLGER / GER / Bonovo Action MGM Racing Performance / BMW M 1000 RR / +46.472
#WorldSBK Standing:
1 Jonathan REA / GBR / Kawasaki / 73
2 Scott REDDING / GBR / Ducati / 65
3 Toprak RAZGATLIOGLU / TUR / Yamaha / 50
15 #94 Jonas FOLGER / GER / BMW / 8
#EstorilWorldSBK - Time Schedule for Sunday May 30th (CET):
10:00 - 10:15 Warm-Up
12:00 Superpole-Race (10 Laps - 41.820 km)
15:00 Race 2 (21 Laps - 87.822 km)
