BSB Round 8 Snetterton

Hydrex Honda have done the impossible and built me a very competitive superbike in eight days ready for the Snetterton round.

It was always going to be hard work at Snetterton with no prior testing; at least I was lucky enough to ride the Honda-Racing Fireblade at the NW200 so understand the machine a little.

First practice was a nightmare with Karl Harris and Johnny Rea crashing after only a few laps on white lines that had been painted the previous night putting Rea out of action for the weekend!

I’d completed the first six laps of practice with no problems before the red flag came out and had asked the team just to fill the fuel tank up and leave me out all session to get accustomed to the Fireblade. When then green lights came on my Honda suffered a miss-fire and the team spent all session and half of the second free-practice identifying the problem which turned out to be the Motec ECU.

I managed a total of only seventeen laps only during free-practice and was thirteenth fastest so qualifying was going to be an uphill struggle.

First qualifying we didn’t change the bikes settings, best to ride it in anger first then sit down with my technicians and discuss the way forward. The Honda felt good but was struggling in one or two areas’s especially the Bomb Hole ending the session fourteenth.

We changed the settings to suit my style in the second session and instantly made progress; I had two qualifying tyres to use and managed two laps out of each one with the second laps being faster, sixth on the grid and quite happy but still need a good start!

My race one start was rubbish, I’d practiced starts after every session but the Suter clutch fitted to bike bites and grabs terrible. I wasn’t aggressive enough first two corners for no real reason leaving me twelfth on lap one.

Put my head down and pushed hard making my way through to seventh by lap nine then passed Harris for sixth. Suffered with my rear tyre and on lap twenty Harris re-passed me, I was able to sick with him but couldn’t find the grip to pass him finishing seventh.

Race two I went for a harder rear tyre trying to cure my grip problems and the track temperature had risen to forty-seven degrees. My start was actually better but still not aggressive enough first two turns ending lap one in thirteenth position.

Made it through to seventh by lap seven then had to bridge the gap up to Thomas and Ben Wilson. Put some good laps together catching and passing Thomas on lap sixteen then Wilson two laps later, Wilson had a go back but got by him again to finish the race in fifth place, satisfied but not real happy.

Considering lack of time on the bike it was a good result and the whole Hydrex team were happy, just feel it could have been better if I’d got the Honda off the line with the front guys!