Looking at our final results they don’t look a great deal different to the last event, however that can’t be further from the truth. What we achieved over the weekend was something that the team and I are fairly proud of.
What we learnt over the weekend was that both the team and I need to work a little more on our consistency; we have now shown we have the speed which is a massive relief after some very tough weeks after the last event.
Losing the Friday’s sessions due to wet weather was something that hurt our testing program a little more than we had expected. We really needed some extra time to fine tune our race set up, as in qualifying we have to try and save our tyres as we only get two sets for both sessions plus Superpole. And for the first time all year we were quietly confident that we would make Superpole.
Not only did we reach our best qualifying position of the year, we did make it into Superpole. Then on top of that we managed to put together a solid Superpole lap that moved us up a few positions on the grid to earn our very first front row start on the KTM RC8R. Stark contrast to the previous round, where we only completed three laps in qualifying.
Race one was more me than anything else going wrong, I got bumped very wide early on then rode very tight not finding a good rhythm at all. We also found that a few things on our package needs to be refined that will also help a lot over race distance, it’s still very early with the new electronics we are developing and now I can feel we are moving in the right direction. Still we finished much closer to the winner than the last races which was a positive step forward.
Race two I was much more relaxed and looking forward to the battles ahead, we had made some small changes to the set up that we thought would help. In the early laps I was having some trouble for top speed and acceleration, thinking it was just the different conditions and a slightly revised tune I kept trying to push. However it was not just me, I soon realized if I don’t start backing down the revs I would not make it to the finish. So I had to step out of the battle and ride to finish. Even with some problems we managed to score some decent points and the bike went the whole distance.
I find it hard to not be excited about the future development and what we can achieve next, the team has been working some very long hours over recent weeks and although it has taken us until now to show what we can do, we are still a long way from finished yet! Next up is a circuit that I enjoy and it can’t come soon enough.
Massive thanks to the team for working so hard to get us where we are and also the great support we have from the fans and sponsors.