TOUGH DAY AT THE OFFICE FOR HONDA RACING

Today has been a tough day for Honda Racing as qualifying for the seventh round of the MCE British Superbike Championship took place at Brands Hatch in Kent. A series of crashes plagued the team during the sessions, but positives can be taken with good race pace showing throughout.

Kicking off the weekend Jason O’Halloran had been enjoying practice sessions aboard his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade machine, with a string of second place finishes. This afternoon’s qualifying was looking hopeful when ‘The O’Show’ breezed through Q1 and Q2 in second places and headed into Superpole.

On a flier of a flying lap it was looking like a front row start was on the cards for O’Halloran who has been showing great race pace throughout, but during the final stages he crashed out of the running, unhurt. The Aussie will start tomorrow’s first 20-lap BSB race from ninth on the grid.

It’s been a similar scenario for team-mate Dan Linfoot who crashed in this morning’s final free practice, unhurt from the morning’s fall, Linfoot headed out for qualifying. Making it into Q2 the Yorkshireman was pushing hard, but disaster struck whilst running eighth as he crashed again.

In the meantime the session was red flagged due to another incident on track and Linfoot made his way back to the garage aboard his CBR machine. The Honda crew assessed the damage, but with just eight minutes left of the session there was too much for the machine to be repaired in time and for him to have enough track time. Linfoot will start race one from 16th place on the grid.

Completing the Honda trio Jenny Tinmouth has also had a mixed weekend so far, with a crash in yesterday’s free practice, but today has been a lot more positive. After a good practice this morning, Tinmouth made it into Q1 where she matched her best lap time and was eighth-tenths faster than before. Tinmouth will line up on the grid 28th for tomorrow’s first race.

The first MCE British Superbike Championship race is schedule tomorrow (Sunday 7 August) at 1330 with race two at 1630. For all the latest news and information on the team follow @HondaRacingBSB on Twitter or like the team’s Facebook page.

The weekend is not over yet, we’ll start again tomorrow! I’ve had two crashes today and just looking at my times, my lap time from FP1 would’ve been good enough for fourth so that’s a little frustrating! The ability and potential is there to be well inside the top-five in Superpole but I’ve got a bad feeling at the moment with the front tyres, so we need to look at that overnight and see if we can find a chassis setting to make this feel better. It’s disappointing that I crashed out not once, but twice so we have some work to find a solution and be prepared for both races tomorrow.

Dan Linfoot

So far I’m happy with how things are going, in all sessions I’ve managed to go just a little bit faster than last year, so I’ve improved every time. The Fireblade feels really good and we’ve taken a little bit of what we learnt at Thruxton and brought it here. We’ve changed the engine mapping a little bit, just tweaked a few bits and pieces to suit the way I ride and that’s really helped. Every practice session I’ve improved my lap times and have done a personal best nearly every time I’ve gone out so that’s great. Qualifying went really well I matched my PB from FP3 so that’s good, obviously I would have liked to go faster, but to match again is good. I’m happy, the bike feels good, I feel really confident and I’ve learnt a few things this weekend so am looking forward to pushing on tomorrow.

Jenny Tinmouth

It was a bad end to a really good day to be honest, I felt really good in FP3 and went into qualifying the most relaxed I’ve been for a while, we made it through Q1 pretty easily and Q2 went well. Going into Superpole I felt good and thought we had a good setting with the CBR. I was obviously pushing hard to make sure we got a front row start for tomorrow but unfortunately crashed in the second to last corner, so there’s a bit of work for the boys to do tonight and a bit of work for me to do tomorrow starting from ninth. So it’s a bitter end to a good day! On a positive note I think we’ve got a really good pace for tomorrow, I feel really strong for both races and I think we can be in the fight for the podium. Every session we’ve pretty much been in the top two/three and have been feeling really strong, which makes this afternoon so frustrating! If it wasn’t pole it would have been a front row for sure and that would’ve been good for tomorrow. So a disappointing end, but we have positives from today and we’ve got a good pace for tomorrow!

Jason O’Halloran

It’s been a tough day for us today with Dan crashing out in Q2 putting us in 16th place and unfortunately Jason missing out in Superpole has put him back to ninth place. But to take the positives both guys have got the pace and we need to make sure that they get a good start for tomorrow’s first race, if this happens I’m sure we can progress through the field. Up until this afternoon Jason and Dan had been up in the top five slots all weekend and working hard, but it’s one of those things, this is racing you know it’s not always easy! Jenny is improving, she had a tumble yesterday, but from this she’s improving and getting stronger. She was 0.6 seconds quicker than she’s previously been round here and again we’ve just got to consolidate this and have two solid finishes tomorrow.

Havier Beltran – Honda Racing team manager

QUALIFYING