Round two of the 2017 MCE British Superbike Championship has drawn to a close, with Honda Racing’s Dan Linfoot and Jason O’Halloran fifth and seventh, respectively, at the end of race one at Brands Hatch. The second encounter on the 1.2 mile Indy circuit saw O’Halloran taking fifth at the line ahead of Linfoot in sixth. Courtesy of today’s great results, Jason and Dan are now only four and six points away from the top-six in the Showdown chase.
The two Honda riders got a good start to race one: O’Halloran maintained his starting position, while from tenth place Linfoot was already on his team-mate’s tail in seventh at the end of the opening lap. Linfoot then got past The O’Show for fourth place, where he stayed until lap 13.
On his all-new Honda Fireblade, Linfoot maintained a solid pace throughout the rest of the encounter, which helped him keep fifth place up to the chequered flag. O’Halloran missed out on a top-six finish by only 0.044secs.
Race two saw an incredible start by O’Halloran, who was up to fourth at the end of lap one. The 29-year-old Australian successfully defended his position for almost half distance and, after dropping down a couple of places, he returned to fourth as the riders entered the last part of the race. With one and a half laps to go, the Aussie had to give away one position after a couple of near high-sides, which he brilliantly saved before crossing the line in fifth.
Linfoot was forced wide at Druids at the very beginning of the race; despite losing some valuable places, the 28-year-old from Knaresborough kept his head down and put together an impressive comeback: he went from 11th to sixth position throughout the course of the race as he showed great speed aboard his Fireblade machine.
The Honda Racing team will now prepare for the third round of the 2017 MCE British Superbike Championship, which takes place 29 April – 1 May.
We’ve scored a good bunch of points today and made a really big improvement compared to Donington Park. We went for the hard tyre option in race one, which turned out not to be the best choice, unfortunately. I didn’t have the same feeling I’ve had during all weekend, also due to the lower temperature we encountered today. I was not too far from the leading group in race two and I tried to hang in there as long as I could, although I lacked a bit of grip at the front-end. I was a couple of seconds away from the podium, which is a massive improvement for us. We have some work to do in order to find some more grip with cooler conditions I’m sure that with temperatures increasing throughout the course of the season, we will be able to get even closer to the front.
Jason O’Halloran / #22
I must give credit to my crew chief, Spider (Darren Maisey) because before race one he told me to use the softer rear tyre option, as he was sure it would have lasted for the whole race. It did pay off, especially considering that many other riders chose the SC1 instead. Race two was a case of recovering as many places as I could, after having to run wide ad Druids on lap one. In the first 10-15 laps I made up some positions and then I focused on keeping a consistently fast pace once I saw it was nearly impossible to close the gap with Jason and the other guys ahead. Obviously, these are still not the results we’re looking forward but there has definitely been a big improvement from round one and I’m happy that I could ride the bike much more the way I like. We take these points and move on to the next race, with the goal to improve some more!
Dan Linfoot / #4
I’m obviously very happy with the progress both Jason and Dan have made today in both races. There are clear signs that we’re moving in the right direction and I feel there is quite a bit more to come but also quite a bit more to do, too. The pace here at the Indy circuit is always very close and there’s very little time to catch a breath, so both riders did a brilliant job especially if we also look at the many crashes that happened today. I’m now looking forward to the Oulton Park test this week and to the next round, where I believe we will be even closer to the sharp end of the field.
