Garrett Gerloff tops Czech WorldSBK practice but “it won’t happen in the race”

Garrett Gerloff topped FP2 at the Czech WorldSBK, but doesn’t “want to get ahead of myself” about his potential in the races.

Gerloff used a new tyre at the end of WorldSBK FP2 at Most to set the best time, beating the factory Ducati of Nicolo Bulega who had crashed early on. The Kawasaki rider says he had to check the compound of tyre he used when he got back to the garage after setting the time, and seems sure that first place is not an achievable target in the races on Saturday and Sunday.

Speaking to WorldSBK.com after FP2 in Czechia, Gerloff said: “Who knows? For sure it won’t happen in the race, right? 

“But I came in and I was like ‘That was the race tyre, right’, and [the team] were like ‘Yes, that was the race tyre’, so I said ‘Okay, whatever’. 

“But, no, really good, really happy with the team and how we’re working. I feel like we found something at Balaton, and I was expecting it to work here in Czechia, too, but I didn’t expect it to work that well. 

“I wasn’t consistent in practice, so I definitely need to work on consistency and everything – I just had one lap and then made a bunch of mistakes. 

“So, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but it’s nice to finally feel like I finally have a good result for the Kawasaki WorldSBK Team and everybody that’s working really hard and sacrificing a lot. So, it’s nice to feel like it’s paid off a little bit.”

Gerloff was in the top-five at Balaton two weeks ago and the American is hopeful of repeating that in Czechia.

“I would really love to get a top-five again,” he said. “I think that’s, realistically, where we want to try to aim, is top-five. 

“It’s going to be tough, for sure, everybody is going strong, and we just have like a little bit of a light shining through right now. 

“But it’s going to be tough tomorrow and I’ve got no qualms about that. 

“We just need to keep working on ourselves. 

“There are still some things that I want to improve on the bike, which is good – I’m glad it didn’t feel perfect, so hopefully there’s more room for it to grow. We’ll see, but a nice way to end Friday.”