Vierge a ‘big step ahead compared to 2022’, aiming for podiums in second season

Finding a base set-up to work with and improvements over race distance have given Xavi Vierge hope of becoming a podium threat during the 2023 WorldSBK campaign.

Robert Jones

17 Feb 2023

Xavi Vierge, Jerez WorldSBK Tests, 25-26 January

After securing a best of fourth during the Superpole race at Misano last season, Vierge wants to join teammate Iker Lecuona in adding his name to the WorldSBK podium club.

Lecuona has the upper hand thanks to finishing third in Race 2 at Assen, but after making improvements during testing compared to where he ended his rookie season, the former Moto2 rider has bigger ambitions to go with it.

"Of course, challenging for podiums is one of the main objectives this year," stated Vierge. "After one year of experience for us, we’re a big step ahead compared to 2022 and we’ll start the weekends with a great base and a lot of information from last year.

"We’ve worked a lot in the winter and in pre-season on our pace in the race, and this makes the difference in the last part of the race.

"We’re doing a good job and we hope to achieve the podiums as soon as possible. The season starts in a lot better place in Australia in their summer and then Indonesia.

"These are two circuits that I really like and that our bike works quite well, so we’ll try to take advantage to fight well.

"About being best Honda, this is my target and Iker and I are pushing ourselves to the limit. We’re improving together, which helps improve the team. I hope we don’t have bad injuries like last year, and I hope that we can fight until the end together."

As already mentioned, Vierge's best result of fourth at Misano was impressive, although it came after a big tyre gamble saw him go with the more favoured qualifying option during the ten-lap Superpole Race, which is why extensive work on race tyres has been put in so far this pre-season.

Vierge added: "We found a base set-up and we improved it a lot on the race simulation. With respect to our race pace from last year, we improved on the hard tyres but then in both the tests, with the softer tyres, I struggled a little bit more.

"Our goal was to improve our race pace on the race tyres, and I think we achieved it.

"If we compare ourselves from before, I think we made a big step forward and I’m looking forward to arriving to Australia to take profit of the next two days of testing."