Misano...

What's that saying, wrong place at the wrong time......Kinda sums up my qualifying performances doesn't it really!!!!!

With Misano being the venue for my only podium last season i was obviously looking forward to getting back there racing, that and the fact that we'd tested there literally the week before so we were up to speed had me well excited!!!

The weekend really got going well, we were constantly up and around the top 5 positions and feeling pretty comfortable with it, the test the week before had really helped, in fact it didn't take too long at all to get going every bit as fast as we'd been the week previous.

Obviously writing this like two weeks after the event some of the details are a little bit sketchy but in provisional qualifying friday afternoon i think i ended up 4th or 5th which was more than ok for now.

The following morning however in 2nd qualifying we got going even better and comfortably with a pretty shabby lap jumped up to P2, however in hindsight this was maybe a little bit of my undoing as with the session being in the morning i.e far far cooler track temperature wise the bike was feeling really good but that afternoon when i got out on track ready for Superpole the bike never felt much different, it seemed to be working the same and i felt fast and confident but the lap times just weren't coming, we were quite a way off, we fired in a new set of tyres just before the end of the final practice and i think i got to within half a second i so of my morning time with a chew the screen kinda lap, oh shit, this is gonna be tricky.......indeed it was.

We scraped through the 1st session using only race tyres which is always good but it was the second session that went horribly wrong for a change, i'm not even gonna bore you with details, the long and the short of it was i couldn't go as fast even with a qualifier as i'd been in the morning on a race tyre so i missed the cut to go through and ended up a totally disgruntled 15th.

Morning warm up the following day brought a turn around in fortune again, the cooler temperature saw me go P1 just a tenth off my fastest time of the weekend with no problem whatsoever, blimey, all i needed was a good start and first couple of laps, how many times have you heard that from me!!!!!

For once this year i did get a sensible start and i got stuck right in through the first chicane making up about 8 places, yeeessssss i thought we're on t, on the run down to the real tight rights i had a look at sneaking another place or two and nearly went in too hot but then Camier came up my inside even hotter sitting me up and for the next few turns i got a bit humped and lost about 4 or 5 places due to being a bit off line, i got myself together and started going forward again but then i made a mistake and run straight on a bit into Quercia losing a couple of spots, i got them pretty much straight back which was handy then set after the group in front i caught and passed James Toseland and Johnny Rea and finally ended up 9th, not great.

For race two i knew i needed to get involved early on and not lose any time, my start wasn't too bad and i ran in the top ten before finishing up a slightly better 7th however this time i was much much closer to the front, sure Max had gone but the group for 2nd were about 3 or 4 seconds up the track which starting for 15th i wasn't too unhappy about.

So to sum up the weekend i guess all i can say is i've got to get it together in qualifying, once again i showed albeit at the wrong times that i've got the pace over a single lap and i have real good race pace over race duration i just need to start from the front to run at the front, hopefully we're getting there, big thanks to the boys for all their hard work, on wards and upwards or downwards as the case ended up to Imola for the official Pirelli test......

Hi mum!!!!!