Jason O’Halloran qualified on the third row of the grid for tomorrow’s opening race at the third round of the MCE British Superbike Championship, after finishing seventh fastest today at Oulton Park. His Honda Racing team-mate Dan Linfoot will start the first 18-lap race from 16th place.
With both crews working hard to further improve the all-new Honda Fireblade at the 4.332km Cheshire circuit, all eyes fell to the afternoons qualifying and where the Honda duo would place ahead of tomorrow opening race.
The O’Show enjoyed solid sessions throughout the three stages, with consistent times throughout. Getting into the final stage the Aussie claimed seventh place, just 0.8 seconds off the lead and will start the first race on the third row of the grid.
Meanwhile, Yorkshireman Linfoot struggled with feeling aboard his Fireblade machine and saw his qualifying cut short when he finished Q2 in 16th place. Linfoot lines up on the grid in 16th place ahead of race one tomorrow.
Race one gets underway at 1330 tomorrow (Monday 1 May), with the second race set to start at 1630.
Well we made a good step in qualifying with the lap times and managed to make it into Q3, which earlier in the weekend I thought would have been a bit of a struggle, if I’m honest! We put our heads together and came up with a few things, which seemed to pay off and I had some decent lap times during qualifying and felt confident going into Q3. I felt like I could push for a better lap time so I went into the final session feeling good. I managed a solid first lap, messed up the second and on the next had a green light on my dash, which means I’m under my personal best, so it was looking positive. However, coming up to Clay Hill there was about four-to-five riders touring and I had to pull up slightly, I am disappointed as I think without that we could have been on the second row – making the job a little easier for tomorrow! Hopefully tomorrow we can get two good point scoring races, gather as much data as possible and try and improve some more.
Jason O’Halloran / #22
Well what can I say? I am not happy with 16th place for tomorrow’s race it makes life difficult for the start, I know that we’re capable of more and it’s not where I want to be. But, this is racing and sometimes it comes together and other times it doesn’t. We do have some work to do and also work out the areas we’re struggling and get those sorted. My main issue seems to be stability and feeling with the Fireblade, it’s a great machine and I know that we are so close to unlocking its potential and most of the issues are small, but they do have a big effect on our results. Tomorrow is a new day and we just have to dig deep and get the best possible result.
Dan Linfoot / #4
This weekend we are slightly on the back foot and one or two small issues have hampered our progress. I know that both Dan and Jason are capable of more and the same with the Fireblade, we are so close to unlocking its full potential, we just have a few small issues to iron out and at the end of the day, we have to keep pushing and working through these things. It is tiny things that are costing us hugely and it does start to affect confidence, so it’s about managing, progressing and making sure that we all club together and work through the issues. On one hand I am slightly disappointed as I know that we are capable of running at the front, but we have to appreciate that it is ongoing development and we need to keep the motivation going and push to be stronger.
