It worked, to some extent. My start wasn’t great but I pulled back a few places in turn one. The only problem was that I got a bit cut off through the next series of corners, taking to the grass a little bit. At the end of lap 1 I was up to 14th, lap 3 11th and lap 9 up to ninth. I had pulled up to a big group which would see me all the way to fifth and I was pretty confident I could pick my way through them as I had closed up on them pretty quickly.
On lap 12 something strange happened. There is a kink on the back straight where it is easily full gas in top gear, there shouldn’t be much weight on the front and the lean angle around there is pretty minimal. I lost the front there, big time! It folded on me at about 170mph and there was absolutely no reason for it. Dunlop had been having some issues with some of their front tyres so straight away I presumed it to be this. I coasted around the last part of the lap and then stopped in the pits. I got off the bike and looked at the front tyre straight away. It looked normal, a bit worn but I’ve seen worse.
I was a bit confused by it all and then we said I might have hit something like a visor tear off or fluid on the track. It was definitely a weird one, it would surprise me if anybody has EVER lost the front in that area before - it just shouldn‘t have happened. I felt like shit for pulling in out of a possible top 5 position but it was something that I wasn’t willing to risk as there had been the tyre issues over the last couple of days which could end up with serious consequences. Dunlop later clarified to us that the tyre was fine so I put it down to something on the circuit.
Chaz#157!
