Iker Lecuona explains Misano WorldSBK crash: ‘I didn’t make a mistake’

Iker Lecuona says he didn’t make a mistake when he crashed in FP2 at the Misano WorldSBK.

Lecuona was second-fastest in FP2, only 0.059 seconds behind his team-mate Nicolo Bulega, the Spaniard setting his best time after he crashed at turn eight.

The fall was not due to an error on his part, Lecuona said after, rather it was a consequence of a front tyre experiment.

“I’m fine,” Iker Lecuona told WorldSBK.com after FP2.

“Just a very small crash. I put the SC2 in the front like in Aragon just to try a little bit, but honestly the edge grip was much lower than we expected. 

“In Aragon was really good and I raced with the SC2, but here I just [released] the brake, I touched a little bit the throttle just to start to turn, and I lost the front. 

“At the beginning I said ‘Maybe I save it’, but then I realised that I’m on the ground, just sliding, and I said ‘Okay, I crashed’. 

“But, honestly, even don’t [lose] any feeling on the bike because then I go in, we change the pipe, we change the parts that were damaged, we put the SC1 front, and the first lap I did my fastest lap. 

“So, I crashed because I used the SC2, but I didn’t do any mistake, just the grip was low and I lost the front. For that reason, it’s not a huge problem.”

Lecuona added that his first day at Misano was complicated by having to adapt back to his WorldSBK machine after riding the Desmosedici MotoGP bike last weekend at Balaton Park.

“I’m quite happy because in the morning it was a bit difficult and tricky to ride the bike,” Lecuona said.

“Coming from the MotoGP everything changed a lot: the movement, the power, the way that I need to ride the bike. We started to change a little bit because honestly maybe I came with a different feeling, for sure, so I needed to change a little bit the bike compared to the test when we rode here.”

Lecuona added: “It was very tricky to understand the way that I need to ride because I came with the MotoGP [style]. My style, I pick up [the bike on corner exit] too fast but we don’t have enough power, we don’t have that device so the bike starts to shake a lot on the rear.

“Even the brakes, I don’t feel the front because it’s different. 

“Overall, I needed some laps to re-adapt and to feel comfortable on the bike. But just in the morning, in the afternoon I jumped on the bike and I feel good, comfortable – it’s more my bike, I want to say. 

“I put the Superbike style and I started to feel good, comfortable, fighting with the bike, playing with the bike. Everything under control, but in the beginning it was tricky.”