BSB Round 12 Donington Park

The usual unsettled East midland weather was forecast to keep track conditions changeable all weekend.

Free practice started off  very wet and slippery, Donington was re-surfaced beginning of last year and it’s very smooth….. good in the dry but water lies across the surface when raining making grip terrible.

Got a good feel for the Honda during the wet session but was certainly struggling for rear grip, didn’t want to crash as the forecast was dry for later.

Sure enough the second free practice wasn’t raining but still damp in many places, the rain had cut my time down finding a good base setting and some gearing settings.

By the end of day one wasn’t really happy with my gearing and was chasing a front end problem, basically wouldn’t hold a line. Ended the day in ninth place about a second of the fastest so have some work to do through qualifying.

Qualifying was dry giving us more time to find some decent base settings, should be spending the session testing race tyres and using qualifying tyres to bang in some quick laps, instead we’re changing geometry on the Honda trying to get happier with the front end.
By the end of the second qualifying session I could only manage fifteenth position, very disappointed and still not altogether happy with my race settings?

Decided overnight to try some quite different settings in warm-up, we only get fifteen minutes but enough time to get a feel. It didn’t work out but pleased we tried it, if you don’t test different idea’s you never progress!

Race one was dry and I got off the line quite well, as we tipped into Redgate somebody ran into me pushing wide over the exit kerbing. By the end of lap one I’d made it back to nineteenth position with a lot of ground to catch up on even to make the top ten.

Got my head down pushing hard as ever, worked my way up to eleventh then had Mason in my sights. He was riding well and both of us were catching the group in front, time ran out though and eleventh was all I could manage, seemed like a lot of work for a crap position.

The rain came down between the two superbike races, when I had a good look at the surface on our sighting lap there was a good dry line. A good start was needed though as passing would be very hard with so many damp areas.

Cracking start slotting into tenth place behind Tommy Hill, I just followed him on lap one letting things settle down. As we entered Redgate into lap two Tommy crashed right in front of me, at first I thought that’s another one out of the way but before I knew anything else I was laying next to him.

Neither of us did anything wrong really, the first lap wasn’t at full pace with the conditions and the slick tyres probably weren’t up to temperature and there was a few damp patches just before the apex….. Shit happens!

Two weeks time at Brands the season ends and I’m desperate for a good result!