A complicated Superpole for Alcoba at Estoril

The Estoril Circuit in Portugal is staging the eleventh WorldSSP round, This morning, in cool, sunny conditions, Jeremy Alcoba took to the track for free practice, during which he worked hard with his team to find the best setup for his ZX-6R 636.

Unfortunately, in this afternoon’s Superpole – which established the grid for Race 1 – the Spaniard had a few difficulties at a track he’s not visited for eight years and never with a Supersport bike.

Despite setting a time just 1.2 seconds from pole, Alcoba finished the session in twenty-first place (1’40”862).

As a result, Jeremy will start Saturday’s race from the ninth row of the grid as the WorldSSP field takes on the winding and very technical 4.182 km track.

Autodromo dell’Estoril – Alcabideche – Portugal
Supersport World Championship
Superpole: 1) Oncu (Yamaha) – 2) Surra (Yamaha) – 3) Debise (Ducati) – 4) De Rosa (QJMOTOR) – 5) Schroetter (Ducati) – Mahias (Yamaha) ………. 25) Alcoba (Kawasaki)

Jeremy Alcoba: “It was a tough day and unfortunately our qualifying result is the worst of the year. We tested a few things with the aim of running closer to the fastest guys, but we actually achieved the opposite result. So we went back to the original setting, and I improved but there wasn’t time to do more. For tomorrow I’ll need a good start, but I’m sure we can run a good race.”

Gerloff makes early progress at Estoril

Garrett Gerloff took his Ninja ZX-10RR to within less than one second of the fastest time on day one of free practice at the Circuito Estoril in Portugal, on Friday 10 October.

In his first experience of the Estoril circuit on his Kawasaki WorldSBK machine, during a dry and sunny FP1 session, Gerloff placed 12th overall – just 1.239 seconds from the fastest early lap time.

After FP2, Gerloff ended his opening day 13th overall in the combined timesheets, yet even closer 0.965 seconds from the quickest rider, Nicolo Bulega. With the pace so fast and the field packed so closely together at this circuit in particular, Garrett was less than four tenths of a second from the third quickest lap time.

On Saturday 11 October Gerloff will ride in a short FP3 session before taking on the challenge of Superpole Qualifying and then the opening 21-lap WorldSBK race of the weekend.

Sunday 12 October will feature the ten-lap ‘sprint’ race and then a second full distance 21-lap Race Two.

Garrett Gerloff: “I feel like I am riding really well and it is just very close in WorldSBK now. I feel like I have been saying the same thing for a couple of weekends, but I am only two tenths of a second from sixth position. It sounds good on paper but I am back in 13th position. If we can make some small improvements I think it can be a big step for tomorrow. The team is working on the bike, trying to find something, so I will come back on Saturday and give it my all.”

Alcoba makes tremendous progress to seventh place!

FIM Supersport World Championship rider Jeremy Alcoba secured a strong seventh place finishing position in the first 18-lap WorldSSP Race at Estoril, having started near the back of the grid.

In Superpole Qualifying, held on Friday afternoon, Jeremy was just 1.254 seconds from the fastest rider, but still ended up 24th on the final grid for the opening race.

Despite this tough starting position on the eighth row, Jeremy found great pace to get into the top ten after just six laps.

He had worked his way up into the second group of riders with a handful of laps to go, and eventually made one final pass to finish seventh.

Even though he showed a remarkably high and consistent pace to come through almost the entire grid, none of Jeremy’s individual laps were quite fast enough to take him into the top nine, which would have given him a start on the third row for Race Two. He will have to start from 25th again in Race Two on Sunday.

After Estoril, the Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto forms the final round of the year, between 17-19 October.

Jeremy Alcoba: “I knew yesterday that the comeback was possible, and we did it. This morning I felt super-good with the bike and even improved on my best lap time from yesterday, while riding with a full tank of fuel. I felt confident and so good. In the race I was fully focused. From the beginning I knew what to do. I was playing and enjoying it. From the first lap I tried to take all the risks early in the race and the pace was amazing. It was enough to fight for the race victory, so I am happy for that.”

Top ten for Gerloff in restarted Race One

Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki WorldSBK Team) had to make two Race One starts on his Ninja ZX-10RR at the Circuito Estoril on Saturday, 11 October, after a red flag stopped the first attempt at running a 21-lap race. In the 20-lap restart, Garrett finished tenth, improving on his starting position by three places.

Before Race One got underway in the Portuguese sunshine, Garrett had taken part in the Superpole Qualifying session that determines the grid spots for the opening race of each weekend. He set a 1’35.827, which was just 0.664 seconds from the rider in third place, but Garrett was not quite as high up the grid ranking as he had hoped to be.

Gerloff started the first race from 13th place on the grid, and on the fifth row.

The first race was stopped after a multiple rider crash in the first turn. After some track cleaning and a quick restart procedure, the first WorldSBK race of the weekend was run over 20 laps.

As the race progressed, so did Garrett. He got into tenth place on lap 11, and remained there until the chequered flag came out. In finishing tenth, the rider from Texas scored six championship points.

Now Gerloff will start Sunday’s ten-lap Tissot-Superpole Race from his original 13th place on the grid, with his starting position for the final 21-lap race of the weekend determined by his finishing position in the ‘sprint’ race.

Garrett Gerloff: “I have been trying my best at Estoril and in Race One I was riding as hard as I could. I qualified in 13th place after Superpole and was only about six tenths of a second from a front-row place. That is still a lot of time difference, but I expected to be closer with the lap time that I did. In the first race, we had an early red flag, which was no good. I had a decent launch from the grid in the restart, but I was just struggling to find pace and make up positions. It was kind of a lonely race. A top ten was good for the team, but for sure we want more. We have more, so we will try again tomorrow.”

Alcoba rides to stunning first podium

FIM Supersport World Championship rider Jeremy Alcoba (Kawasaki WorldSSP Team) took a first podium for himself and his Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R 636 in Race Two at Estoril, after a quite remarkable ride through almost the entire pack.

After moving forward rapidly from 24th place in Race One on Saturday, and finishing an already astonishing seventh, Jeremy improved on even that amazing performance to end his race inside the top three on Sunday, 12 October.

With an even better bike set-up than he enjoyed on Saturday, Alcoba’s name moved up and up through the rankings, finally finishing just under a second from second place and just over 3.5 seconds from the race winner – and new World Champion – Stefano Manzi.

Jeremy also set the fastest lap of the second race, with a 1’39.868.

Alcoba has enjoyed some top ten and even top five rides this year, mixed in with some less satisfying results. This first ever podium for him and the Ninja ZX-6R 636 was thus all the sweeter for all involved in the Kawasaki WorldSSP effort.

This third place was the 167th podium placing for a Kawasaki rider in WorldSSP, and the first since 2023.

In the championship table Alcoba is ninth, with 159 points – just ten points behind eighth position overall.

After Estoril, the Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto hosts the final round of the year, between 17-19 October. There will be two more full WorldSSP races to compete in, with Jeremy and his crew out for more podium success at a circuit he knows well from both his domestic racing experiences and his recent outings inside the MotoGP paddock.

Jeremy Alcoba: “Today we took our first podium position. I feel amazing because it has been a long time since I have been in Parc Ferme. I came to this championship to win, but it has been a difficult year. I promised myself to make a podium before I finished the season. So I am happy for this. Friday was really bad in Superpole Qualifying, and I didn’t expect that. Six years ago, when I was last here in Moto3, I was on pole. I promised myself that it would be here that I got another podium. In Saturday’s warm-up, the team did a really good job, so we were super-fast in Race One. I started 24th, so it was a difficult comeback. Last night was happy because I thought I would start in the top ten grid places today, but no, it was 25th place on the Sunday grid. I was a bit sad at that yesterday, but then I said, no, I will do better in Race Two. The team added another extra improvement in the set-up, and I was super-fast and super-happy. The pace was amazing, and I enjoyed it like a kid. I was passing everywhere. I was seeing some top guys through all the race, and I was like, “Ok, one more… OK, two more…’ I only want to say thank you to everyone that believes in me.”

More points for Gerloff in Estoril

Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki WorldSBK Team) completed the two final races at the Circuito Estoril in Portugal with results just outside the top ten positions.

In the ten-lap Tissot-Superpole Race Garrett ended up 12th after starting from 13th position on the grid. He was unable to secure any points in this race because of the reduced allocation of points for the sprint races.

In Race Two, which went the full 21 laps around the 4.182km long Estoril layout, Gerloff finished 11th, securing five championship points in all. He was only 0.128 seconds from a top ten result on his Ninja ZX-10RR.

In the championship table, after 11 of 12 rounds and 33 of 36 individual races, Garrett is 15th overall, and just four points from the rider in front.

The final round of the season will take place in just a few days. The classic venue of Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto will host the 12th and last race weekend of the 2025 season between 17-19 October.

Garrett Gerloff:

“All in all, I am not super-happy with the weekend, but we had no crashes, which is good, and we were really close to being inside the top ten in the long races. Those are the two positives that we can take away. We are just missing something, but we will keep trying to find it. It seemed like things were getting better in the middle of the season, and we were getting faster, but now it just seems like it’s a bit of a struggle. We have one more race weekend left for the year, and we will try our best to end the season on a high note.”