After Tuesday’s private tests with a lot of crashes (though fortunately no riders were injured), the teams spent the whole of Wednesday fixing the damage to their bikes. Qualifying tomorrow (Thursday) will be decisive, with free practice in the morning and two qualifying sessions in the afternoon. The unusual schedule has been devised for the first bike and car double-header event taking place in Slovakia this week, i.e. a round of both the FIA WTCR / OSCARO and the FIM EWC.
The 32 teams (18 in the Formula EWC class, 14 in Superstock, with riders and teams of 21 different nationalities) will be on the track at 9am.
A few high-profile teams have hired new riders. Bratislava-based Slovakian squad Maco Racing Team will have Gregory Leblanc shoring up Anthony Dos Santos and Julian Mayer. British racer James Westmoreland, who turned in a good performance with Motors Events at Le Mans, will ride Czech team Fany Gastro BMW Motorrad by Mercury Racing’s BMW together with Karel Hanika and Ondřej Jezek. Swedish rider Christoffer Bergman joins Wójcik Racing Team alongside Polish rider Marek Szkopek and British racer Gino Rea.
The 8 Hours of Slovakia Ring will be flagged off at 12 noon on Saturday 11 May.