Saturday was going to be another busy day, starting with 60 minutes of MotoGP free practice. Again, I was just planning on doing plenty of laps and building from where I had left off the day before. There was no pressure from myself or the team, and I just wanted to improve. Within four laps, I had bettered my best lap of the day before, getting down to 1min 26.0secs. I plugged away at it bit by bit, and was trying to hone my style to suit the bike every lap. We made some good improvements to the bike, helping it turn in a bit faster and, most importantly, turn better at the apex of the corner. By the end of the session, I was down to 1min 25.2secs, 2.8secs off the fastest time, getting faster and feeling like there was plenty more to come.
After
MotoGP, I had no time to talk to my mechanics as I had to run and get out off Hoffman’s leathers, get into my own Celtic Racing leathers and get to pit-lane for the start of the Supersport warm-up 15 minutes later. The session went very well, and we managed to improve the look and longevity of the front tyre, although it was still not perfect. I went a second faster than I had qualified and felt pretty good. It was getting to the point where we had to make a couple of tweaks to the bike, but there was a risk because there would be no time to try the bike before the race.
I was excited about MotoGP qualifying and couldn’t wait to try out the
Bridgestone qualifying tyre. Throughout the session, I did a few consistent laps in mid to high end of the 1min 24 bracket. With 15 minutes to go, it was time for my first Q tyre run. The lap went well and was clean - I focused on not making any mistakes and put trust in the tyre. When cracking on the gas with a Q, it always feels like it’s dangerous because you’re doing it so much harder and earlier than normal but, once I get out of the corner, I’m always telling myself I could have cracked it on earlier. I came across the line in 1min 24.0, about 1.5secs off pole at the time, and managed to put a few people behind me for the first time in the weekend.
