A hard-fought twelfth place for Jake Gagne ensured a double points finish at the Aragón WorldSBK round, the American rider continuing his progress on the Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team CBR1000RR Fireblade SP2 for his best weekend yet in the WorldSBK championship.
Starting from thirteenth position on the grid, Gagne had a storming start to make up multiple positions and settled into tenth place at the end of the first lap. Fighting hard to secure the first top-ten finish of his WorldSBK career, Gagne set a competitive pace in the middle stage of the race and in the final laps enjoyed a close battle with Kawasaki rider Román Ramos, with Gagne crossing the finish line in P12 just 0.1 seconds behind his Spanish competitor.
Gagne was the sole rider for the Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team in Race 2 due to the injury his team mate Leon Camier sustained in Race 1 and by securing another point-scoring finish, Gagne moves up a place in the riders classification into fifteenth overall with 17 points after three rounds. Camier is in eighth place in the standings with 42 points.
The next WorldSBK round is the Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team’s home race at the Assen Circuit in the Netherlands next weekend.
Jake Gagne
“We made a couple of changes in Warm Up this morning that I was really happy with which helped me a lot, particularly in braking. With those changes made I was confident heading into the race and I got a great start and slotted into tenth place on the first lap and found a good rhythm. The Fireblade was working really well and I could hold a good pace throughout the race, but in the last few laps I struggled a bit with rear grip so at that point I just focused on keeping my position. Overall I’m really happy from this weekend as I got points in both races and made progress with the bike so it’s a good way to head into Assen next weekend.”
Kervin Bos – Team Manager
“Today we saw another solid performance from Jake, fighting in the top ten and then managing his race well to finish in twelfth place. Jake scored points in both races this weekend and stepped up his performance for his best weekend so far in WorldSBK. We head to Assen next week and it’s a circuit that Jake knows well so hopefully his good result this weekend will give him momentum as we head into a busy part of the season. We also had some good news from Leon, who is leaving hospital in Alcaniz today and is heading home to Andorra so we wish him all the best and will continue to monitor his recovery.”