A tough race 1 for local rider Mercado at Villicum

The MIE Racing Honda Team has completed the first of the three races making up the penultimate Superbike World Championship weekend at rider Leandro ‘Tati’ Mercado’s home track of San Juan Villicum in Argentina.

In the morning’s final free practice session, Tati was able to improve on his best time of yesterday by almost a full second, the work appearing to progress in the right direction. During the subsequent Superpole qualifying phase, the Argentinian pushed hard to secure a good grid position for the first race. He set a fast 1’38.669 early on in the session but was unfortunately prevented from doing more when he crashed in the crucial final stages, unable to complete the phase. This meant that Mercado closed in fourteenth position, which translated into a fifth-row start for the afternoon’s race.

The 21-lap race got underway as scheduled at 3pm local time and in warm and sunny conditions. From fourteenth off the line, Mercado moved straight up into eleventh place through the first turns. Slipping back a little over the following laps, Tati struggled to maintain a consistent pace. As the gaps opened up, the Argentinian was unable to make up much of the lost ground, the rider ultimately crossing the line in sixteenth place, just outside the points zone.