Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on July 25, 26, 27 and 28 took place the 4th round of the ESBK Spanish Superbike Championship in a trying heat reaching 39 degrees.

Well known because it is the same problem every year on this track of the Barcelona circuit which does not favor the riders equipped with Pirelli tires who cruelly lack more or less grip in racing tires depending on the motorcycle brands.

Concentrated mainly during the 4 free sessions in search of grip without really and unfortunately finding the solutions, the qualifying session served more to validate the reference of the rear tire to use for the races than to play the qualification as it should be. At the end of the session, the team put on a qualifying tire that brought a little more performance to our package but not enough for Gil Motor Sport driver Christophe Ponsson to start better with his BMW Pirelli from 11th place on the starting grid, and this at 0’568 seconds behind the reigning Champion Ivo Lopes on his official BMW fitted with Dunlop tires.

Race 1 :

Good start for Lyon driver Christophe Ponsson who gained a place at the start of the first corner, then a 2nd place gained in the second lap of the race, then a 3rd place gained at the end of the 4th lap, thus positioning him in 8th position and thus up to 5th position overall in the race when the Race Direction stopped the event on a red flag on the 10th lap because a competitor broke his engine and then spilled oil on the track.

The race did not restart since the 75% of the event had been reached. Gil Motor Sport rider Christophe Ponsson is therefore ranked 5th in this 1st race of the Catalan weekend.

Race 2 :

In this second race Christophe Ponsson starts from 5th place and will keep it until the 7th lap where he almost fell after starting to lose the front. The Gil Motor Sport rider managed to straighten his bike like a professional tightrope walker and finally stay on his wheels, however in this labor of recovering his machine, Christophe Ponsson conceded 4 places to his pursuers and thus finds himself in 9th place. Too bad because before that he was fighting for 4th place with the Spanish rider Roman Ramos and his official Kawasaki from whom he took back 1 to 2 tenths per lap and hinted at a great fight at the end of the race between these 2 riders.
In the end Christophe Ponsson will finish in 9th place in this second round of the weekend.

In conclusion :

This Catalan weekend will not mark the team’s minds, even if in terms of points it is the race weekend that has won the most points since the beginning of the season.
We continue to work during upcoming tests at the Jerez circuit to resolve this flu problem that has been failing us since the beginning of the season.

Next return event at the Estoril Circuit in Portugal from August 28 to September 1.