I was just looking forward to trying to have as much fun as possible in what will most probably be my last 250GP. The team also said to me that if we could be racing with another kit Honda, then it would be a successful weekend for them.
In the race my start was initially very good and then the ol’ girl ran out of puff a bit as soon as I clicked third gear but it still wasn’t too bad. Going into the first corner I thought to myself 'You’ve got nothing to lose' so I went for the Tarzan line around the outside which worked quite well. Into turn two, the hairpin, I thought the same thing and again went for the big line and it worked well again!
I think I got up to around 19th from worse than 25th on the grid so it wasn’t too bad. The race then settled down a bit and I tried to hang with whoever was in front of me. After five laps I started to feel a bit of cramping in my legs and started thinking 'This is the only thing that I won’t miss about these bikes'. I was a few seconds behind the Molenaar rider on the kitted Honda, Alessandro Branetti. I reeled him in with about seven laps to go but had nothing left strength wise. My legs were absolutely killing me. My bike hadn’t been too bad during the race, I was still lacking a lot of grunt in the first four gears but as soon as I got into the last two gears it would start to pickup a bit, but obviously by that point it’s getting a bit late. I only used 5th and 6th once on that track, down the front straight.
As for the chassis, that was quite poor but I was happy with my rear tyre gamble. It was a really hard tyre that I went for and it definitely didn’t go off! It was probably one step too hard but not bad considering it was a complete guess. In the closing laps I really didn’t have the strength to attack Branetti and ended up crossing the line just behind him in 21st. On the slowing down lap I let my legs dangle and couldn’t wait to get off the thing!
