WSBK Superbike Test Portimao J2, Dominique Aegerter (Yamaha/16): "the gap with the front runners is a little too big for my taste, we need to reduce that"

With Danilo Petrucci on his Ducati, Dominique Aegerter, also a rookie in WSBK with his Yamaha, demonstrated that the happy ones at Jerez were the disappointed ones at Portimao. Thus, after a 6th place during the first 2023 Superbike winter test in Spain, Dominique Aegerter of the GRT team had much more difficulty in the second at Portimao. The Swiss settled for 16th place in the final, 1,8 seconds behind leader Bautista, and six tenths behind his teammate Remy Gardner, eighth on the timesheet. Nothing to brag about, but no reason to panic either because the double Supersport World Champion assures that he is on the right track to successfully validate his move to Superbike.

And moreover, to show that he is convinced of this, he begins his assessment of tests in Portimao with this evaluation which is not in line with the final ranking: “ I am satisfied with what we have accomplished over the last two days ", declares agitated. " We tested and tried a lot of things on the bike again and looked at the different tire options. Unfortunately, we were not always able to exploit the full potential, such as when chasing the clock. But we have received good information that we will continue to work with when it comes to developing a basic setup that will help us throughout the season ».

He adds : " there were also basic things on the agenda, like improving sitting posture, and there were new parts we got from Yamaha to try and evaluate them ". The Swiss specifies on speedweek : " after these two tests, with a total of four days with this bike, I see myself fully on the right track regarding the transition to Superbike ».

**Dominique Aegerter: “ I had a new experience when I had to brake the bike at the end of a straight line at around 320 km/h«**

Dominique Aegerter also mentions: “ I had a new experience when for the first time I had to brake the bike at the end of a straight line at around 320 km/h. I had never experienced this before ". Then he finishes: “ my experienced team tries to help me as much as possible. However, I still need a lot of laps and kilometers to understand everything better. First and foremost this includes the bike and we need to get to know each other better as a team ».

« The performance of the motor and electronics play a big role, electronics being the most important task as they can be adjusted individually from turn to turn. We are in a learning process. Maybe we didn't do as well in this test as in Jerez. It wasn't easy and the gap with the leaders is a little too big for my taste. This needs to be reduced ". Now go to Phillip Island, on his teammate's land Remy gardner, where the 2023 WSBK season will launch at the end of this month.