In the latest of his exclusive columns for Crash.net, Stobart Honda's Michael Laverty tells us about a tough weekend at Thruxton...
Hello race fans – difficult weekend for us and no doubt, this is what happened.
It was a strange weekend for us right from first practice, we really struggled with getting the bike to work round Thruxton and we just never really put our finger on the cause or the cure. It’s been tough for the riders and the mechanics and it has just been a disheartening weekend really. At the end of the day we feel it is more of a bogey circuit than it is a bike problem. I think we had a strong package in the first few races and then came to Thruxton and nothing really worked for us. It’s been tough it’s just been survival and bagging a few points. It is definitely not the way we had planned the weekend to go as I was on a real high after
Donington.
Thruxton is quite unique in the high speed bumpy corners. Being an old airfield it is really grippy and quite bumpy. It is such a strange place to ride round, on a smaller bike it is not bad but round here on the Superbike it spins and grips everywhere and just upsets the bike. Actually in the race I wasn’t able to go down the straights on full throttle as my bike was going into tank slappers so bad. It was a tough weekend and just not enjoyable to ride, but that is the way it is. We struggled last year with the Honda too and we thought considering the bike had so much improved it would work ok at Thruxton but it just didn’t work at all from first practice to the last race it was a struggle.
