The penultimate round of the Supersport world championship got underway today at the Jerez de la Frontera racetrack in Spain. The Schmidt Racing team and rider Kyle Ryde were last on track at Magny-Cours where they continued to develop their Kawasaki ZX-6R, obtaining results that proved the validity of the work that the technicians and rider are carrying out.
Thirteenth for Ryde and Schmidt Racing at Jerez
This morning, Kyle was on track for the first timed practice session, on a dry track and under sunny skies. With a time of 1’46”325, the Jacksdale rider closed out the session in twentieth place.
Kyle spent the early part of the session around twelfth place before moving up as high as 10th. Kyle was pushed back to 15th but remained competitive with times around 1.5 seconds off the lead. Kyle was pushed back to 20th in the closing stages as riders strove for their best lap.
In the second timed session, Kyle was able to improve on his time by almost a second and, with a best of 1’45”402 he wasn’t far off the pace. Kyle ended the day in thirteenth position overall but that didn’t tell the whole story.
Committed riding from Kyle saw him spend a large part of the session in 7th place before slipping back to 15th by the three quarter stage of the session. Kyle briefly slipped back another couple of places before starting his fight back. Quickening his pace towards the end of the session saw Kyle claw his way back up to a very respectable 13th place, just 1.110 seconds off the pace of eventual leader Randy Krummenacher.
Kyle will be taking part in Superpole 1 tomorrow, we’re hoping that Kyle can force his way into Superpole 2 if he performs well in the first session
Kyle Ryde:
“Today’s been a positive day but it would have been better to be in SP2. Anyway, we’ve done better than at any other track this year, I think we’re only 1 second from the fastest time, so we are continuing to improve step by step and that’s good.
It was quite hot this afternoon for the second practice while tomorrow morning will be cooler again for the Superpole so I’m not sure what we’ll need to change a few settings on the bike but I’m sure we’ll find a solution…”