HM Plant Honda are hoping a recent test at Cadwell Park will help answer some of the questions posed by this year's dominance of the Airwaves Ducati ahead of the latest Bennetts British Superbike round at
Mallory Park.
Both Cal Crutchlow and Leon Haslam have posed a good fight for Shane Byrne and Leon Camier, but have so far only managed to score two wins in ten races. This figure is all the more disappointing given that they led races at
Snetterton and
Donington Park, but couldn't translate it into victory.
Nonetheless, both riders spent the two-week break between the Snetterton and Mallory Park rounds fettling the bike's set-up at Cadwell Park. For Haslam especially, he claims the bike is now much more to his liking.
“In between Snetterton and Mallory we tested last week at Cadwell Park – HM Plant Honda's local circuit. The weather was a bit tricky, but it's always good to get more time on the new CBR1000RR Fireblades.
“As a result of trying a few things I've got more ‘feel' from the front-end which will be handy around Mallory Park. We know we have to improve things to be consistently up at the front and that's what we're aiming to do. We just hope we can get good weather in practice and qualifying to refine the bikes still further.”
Crutchlow, meanwhile, is confident HM Plant have developed a bike that can halt their arch-rivals' dominance, starting at Mallory Park, his home round.
“Every round of the Bennetts British Superbike championship is important, but we're at the half-way point now, so we really want to get some points over the Ducatis. We both want to be up there fighting with Shakey and Leon Camier and I've got the added bonus of it effectively being my ‘home' round, as Mallory isn't too far from Coventry.”
