Lydd’s Bradley Ray struggles for pace with best result of 17th for Yamaha Motoxracing in Superbike World Championship at Aragon

Lydd’s Bradley Ray feels he underachieved during the latest round of the Superbike World Championship in Spain.

Ray struggled for pace on a disappointing weekend in Aragon, qualifying his Motoxracing Yamaha R1 17th for race one with a best time of 1min50.052sec but dropping a place at the finish.

He was 18th again in the 10-lap Superpole race and 17th in race two, but has the chance to make amends quickly, with the next round in Portugal this weekend.

“I feel that the results achieved this weekend don’t respect the work we’ve done or our true potential,” he said.

“This is a difficult track for the Yamaha. I was losing a lot out of the corners and also down the long straight.

“In race two my feeling with the bike was better than it had been all weekend, and so I hope we can start from a good base when we get to Portimao [in Portugal]. Thanks to the whole team for always believing in me and for having worked so hard here.”

Team principal Carlo Carusi admitted his engineers were at a loss as to why Ray was so far off the pace.

"We expected a positive weekend considering the progress made in recent races, but instead we leave Aragon disappointed, without understanding the reason for Bradley’s difficult races,” he said.

“We hope for a positive finale at Portimao, and then we’ll evaluate our plans for 2024.”