For the afternoon we changed absolutely nothing on the chassis which is the first time we’ve done that for a while, but I knew that as the weekend went on and the faster I go the more problems occur so we would definitely not be leaving it at that.
The engine wasn’t particularly strong in the morning session so my mechanic made some changes for the first qualifying. Right from the start of the session I couldn’t change gear properly. It’s quite difficult to explain but the 'quick shifter' we have on our bikes that allow us to keep the throttle fully on, while changing gear, wasn’t working properly.
This is nothing to do with the shifter being broken but when the engine is squeezed on the carburetion for more power this seems to upset the shifter. All session I was in and out of the box but the problem wasn’t going away. I was having to use my hand to change gear which costs time and also the bike was misfiring at random times. I did about 6-7 laps less than most people and finished up in 18th on a 1min 57.0secs.
On Saturday we made some changes overnight in the hope of getting somewhere with the shifter problems, but nothing really changed in the morning free practice. It was the same scenario as the day before, in and out of the box and not many laps. The frustrating thing was that there’s not many times in the year when I can say from the very start of the weekend that the chassis is good, it seemed like if it wasn’t one problem there was always another. I finished the session in 19th.
In the afternoon the problems improved slightly and I could now change gear but had to sacrifice changing a few hundred RPM lower than normal as this is the only way it would work.
We made a couple of very small alterations to the chassis which were for the better and I was finally able to concentrate on going fast for the first proper time in the weekend! At the end of the session I did a 1min 55.8secs, which I was a bit disappointed to be in 17th on the grid with, but the times were very close, only half a second to 10th and 0.8secs to the second row of the grid.
