An encouraging first day of WorldSBK action for Superbike Advocates Racing at Portimão

• Superbike Advocates Racing and Tommy Bridewell make positive progress throughout Friday’s practice sessions at the Portuguese track to position fifteenth, just over a second from the front.

As the second round of the 2026 Superbike World Championship gets underway at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve in Portugal, Superbike Advocates Racing makes its debut appearance on the world stage with rider Tommy Bridewell.

The squad kicked off its first WorldSBK race weekend with the morning’s first free practice, which ran in warm, dry conditions at 10.20 local time (CET-1). Maximising this initial 45-minute session, Bridewell put in fourteen laps of the track with the Ducati Panigale V4R. Working systematically with his technicians to make adjustments to his setup and riding, Tommy made several short exits. Having had little dry track time during the recent test at this same track, Bridewell took full advantage of today’s dry conditions. Making gradual progress throughout this first session, Bridewell placed a very encouraging thirteenth with a best of 1’41.315, less than a second from the first-placed rider.

Back out mid-afternoon for the second practice, the Superbike Advocates Racing rider immediately improved on his FP1 reference. A crash at Turn 5 caused Bridewell to lose valuable minutes in the second half of the session but did nothing to shake the rider’s determination. Back on track after making a pitstop, the rider rounded out this first day of WorldSBK action in fifteenth position in the aggregate standings (1’41.103), separated from the fastest rider by little more than one second.

Tommy Bridewell (Superbike Advocates Racing #46)
“Today’s been very positive and I’d say we’ve definitely hit the ground running. The problem is that, as a racer, when you hit the ground running, you then want to sprint, while right now we need to take a bit of a step back. But I feel really good on the bike, and we’ve made steady progress with various technical aspects, knowing that we can still make a big step. In FP2 I was caught out by the temperature change, along with a few other riders, and was perhaps pushing a bit hard, which caused me to crash. But all in all, for a brand-new team, day one, no testing, to finish 1.1 seconds from the front can only be a positive result. I know we still have a long way to climb, but we’re up for the challenge and the team’s doing an incredible job. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”