Well, as you can probably imagine, 2 race meetings and 2 100 mph highsides were far from what i was hoping for after a fantastic pre season test schedule but unfortunately that's what i've had so far, let's be positive though, at the end of the day 6th and 7th from Portimao was far better than 10th and 12th or whatever it was!!
I was really looking forward to getting back to one of my favourites circuits to ride, finishing the preseason test there in 3rd was great but to be honest we were quite a way off being really comfortable there with the new bike and since the tests we'd made a fair bit of progress with the set up of the bike. I was actually really happy once we got underway on Friday, for the 1st free practice session we made a real good plan and stuck to it thoroughly, basically we had two different types of front forks and two different specs of rear shocks to try, along with that and some slightly different engine management settings that we never got the chance to test before, we stuck to the plan like glue and used just one pair of tyres to get through all the work so to finish 12th and about half a second off was no drama at all.
For the afternoon qualifying session we carried on with our work combining the best bits from both bikes and working out a good setting, i'd be lying through my teeth if i said i went all out for qualifying, after Australia's escapades the last thing i needed was another big crash so P7 for me was more than ok, that combined with the fact that we'd found a really good direction for the Saturday morning free practice, we were on it, less than half a second off pole and feeling really comfortable.
Saturdays improvements were obvious immediately, within 4 laps i'd gone P1 and was feeling good, i had a few little moments though that i hadn't been having before but then again my rhythm was quite a lot faster so that was to be expected, i'd just done my fastest lap of the morning so far and knew the lap i was about to complete was real good too, as i peeled into the final turn in 3rd at just over 100mph everything was good but then as i touched the gas on the side of the tyre the rear let go, no no no no i thought as it came right around in what seemed like slow motion and then as if i had a catapult up my a hole up i went, initially i thought it's ok, i've got it, i've got it but as i came crashing down back on top of the bike i missed the bars and down i went, sure bouncing along the track at 100mph hurts, rolling through the gravel doesn't do you many favours either but when i came to a standstill or lay still depending on how you take it i didn't stay put so much for pain but for utter devastation, i was so gutted that this had happened to me again, i was like why me... funny thing was which just goes to show how lucky or unlucky depending on how you look a look at it was that quite literally the only thing any different whatsoever was being about 20-30cm wider when i got on the gas than the lap before, the speed, braking, taking the throttle, amount of throttle taken was all identical, spewing!!!!!
I decided to sit out the rest of the remaining 20 0dd minutes of the session, luckily i was in far better shape than i was after Australia but giving myself a bit of time out seemed like the master plan.
Much to my relief everything was absolutely fine on the bike that afternoon, of course i was a bit sore to say the least but immediately i was fully back up to speed, and faster!!!
I'm gutted about the way Superpole went, we thought it was going to be difficult to get through the first knockout using only a race tyre because the times were so so close but we pulled it off easily, in the 2nd session i matched the time on the same rear race tyre and needed just .3 or something to go through so we fired in the first qualifier and off i went to bang out a pretty average lap albeit my fastest ever lap around there to go P2, I really really thought we were in with a real good shot at Pole after that lap, as i said it was far from tidy and i still had another tyre left for the final exit.
The team and i chose to wait a second then exit on the new rear immediately, bang in 2 laps and see where it takes us, as i said i was right up for it. As i started my first flyer i had a few little moments that i put down to trying too but by the end of the lap i could tell it was more than me making mistakes, the grip just wasn't there, i came round fully expecting a crap lap, sure enough it was nearly half a second off of the scrappy lap i'd done before, i tried one more but that was even worse so P7 it was then.
Morning warm up went incredibly well, sure P7 never looked special but for some reason the rear tyre we were due to put more laps on developed a problem so i did the session on the hardest rear we had and was real real fast considering.
So with that we had our plan for the race, the only thing we hadn't done due to the Saturday AM crash and losing out on putting laps on the rear in warm up was to find out how the bike would work over full race distance, oh how that would cost me......
As the lights went out in race one i got a fairly sensible start, i settled down in around 5th but after a couple of laps i got up to 3rd, the problem was Leon and Max were a couple of seconds ahead and despite my best efforts just about matching them was about the best i could do and as the laps wore on that got more and more difficult, basically my bike was set mega for a fast lap but unfortunately as race distance wore on it started to get harder and harder to maintain my lap time, eventually i dropped to a disappointing 6th but as soon as i got back we had a plan for race two, fingers crossed then.....
Basically for race two we stiffened up the bike for race two, after looking at the data we could see the problem was that the bike was too soft, i got another ok start and ran in the top 5 or so but after just a couple of laps i was sliding a lot more than race one, basically the stiffer setting took away some grip, i was really frustrated, it was one of the longest races of my life because i just felt like i couldn't do anymore, either way like i said 6th and 7th is a big step in the right direction.
Although Portimao turned into a somewhat frustrating weekend i'm really excited about Valencia, it was there in the test that we made a bit of a breakthrough and i'm gonna be on a mission training wise beforehand to ensure i'm in tip top condition for the races, the master plan has to be to stay on the bloody thing that weekend and try to start fighting for the podiums i know we're capable of, lets keep it lit and talk soon, take it easy, Shakey #67
A shot from Portimao, i like this photo!!!!
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