Dominique Aegerter was fifth quickest on combined times as the GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team returned to action at the Autodromo do Algarve (Portimao), Portugal, for the seventh round of the FIM Superbike World Championship.

The GYTR GRT Yamaha pair of Aegerter and Gardner focused on race settings and distance in the first free practice session, which took place at 13:15 local time, showing decent speed and using the same set of tyres in the 45-minute session. Gardner was tenth fastest on a 1’41.826, while Aegerter was 12th with a time of 1’41.874.

In a very different Free Practice 2 to usual, as the session got underway at 18:00 local time, Aegerter and Gardner prioritised again race distance over quick lap times early in the session. Despite this, the Swiss rider was able to improve consistently his performance to finish fifth on a strong 1’40.821. His team-mate Gardner was on his way to improve too, but unfortunately was forced to miss out on the latter stages of the session due to a technical problem. The Aussie rider rounded out the day 18th (1’41.644).

Dominique Aegerter: P5 (1’40.821)
“Overall it was a good day and it’s nice to be back inside the top five. This is just free practice, but it gives us extra confidence and that’s very good. The late schedule here is also very interesting, let’s see how it will goes with the races. We were able to make a good step from the morning and we hope we could do another one tomorrow. We’ll work very hard to keep making progress and to have a good qualifying session tomorrow, that’ll be very important to build a good race.”

Remy Gardner: P18 (1’41.644)
“It was a complicated day, but we’ll bounce back tomorrow. The feeling in the morning was not amazing, but we were confident we could improve in the afternoon. Unfortunately we missed some valuable track time due to a technical issue, but let’s stay positive and tomorrow it’ll be another day. Anyway, it’s always fun to ride in Portimao and I cannot wait to be back on track.”