Iker Lecuona says the time has not but come for him to win his first World SBK race on the Hungarian spherical.
Lecuona entered the Balaton Park World Superbike weekend within the hope that the Hungarian venue’s stop-start structure would give him an opportunity to problem Nicolo Brega for a race win.
Brega received all three races, however Lecuona suffered from poor qualifying, a grid penalty, and an absence of race tempo within the closing levels of the ultimate race, leading to him ending second in all three races.
Lecuona seemed to have an opportunity when Brega was buried within the pack on the opening lap of the Superpole race, leaving the Spaniard in second place behind Lorenzo Baldassari, however a pink flag for an accident between Miguel Oliveira and Andrea Locatelli ended any hopes and Brega led from lights to flag within the shortened and restarted race.
“It was one hundred pc actual,” Iker Lecuona informed WorldSBK.com after Race 2 about his possibilities of profitable the Tremendous Pole race earlier than the pink flag.
“So, yeah, why not? However from the opposite aspect, a race is a race and that begin occurred and somebody pushed him vast and that is what it’s.”
“Actually, I anticipate my first win to be like going head-to-head with him in a ‘actual race’, preventing him all through the race, and profitable.
“On the one hand, I do not need to say I am not completely happy that we did not win, however alternatively, I would say it wasn’t my day.”
Lecuona fell ailing on Thursday, was exhausted on Friday, and was sluggish once more in Race 2 resulting from bodily issues, having been inside 10 seconds of Brega for a lot of the race, earlier than dropping 2.5 seconds again on the final lap.
“I wasn’t feeling effectively on Thursday, so Friday was fairly a battle bodily,” he mentioned.
“I’ve to say that it was a brief race and I wanted two extra pink flags to catch Nicolo (Bulega), as a result of from the center of the race to the tip I ran a bit of quicker and caught up with him effectively.”
“Within the lengthy race, I believed, ‘Okay, perhaps I can simply hang around with him,’ as a result of I have been performing very well. However the actuality is, I am unable to recuperate my vitality as a lot as I need between the brief race and the lengthy race, so bodily I began to endure fairly a bit within the final seven laps.”
“So I had a very exhausting time, I made some errors, I nearly crashed a number of instances, I nearly went straight on the chicane.
“I mentioned, ‘Okay, that second place isn’t the end result we needed, however both method it is good for the championship, good for the group and ideal for me.’
“Yet another second. Let’s go to work, that is it, let’s go to work. I am proud of the efficiency as a result of I get to catch Nicolo a bit of bit each time I leap on the bike.”
