The bike felt pretty good. Like last year, the front tyre was chewing after 5 laps so we focused on tyres mainly for the first day to see what would stick it best. In the afternoon we tried harder tyres on the front and the rear, the hardest tyres that Dunlop offer to me.
The rear wasn’t making any difference at all because it looked and felt good all the time but the front was taking a pounding. It’s the complete opposite to any other circuit. The front was behaving like the rear, having a big tear line after 5 laps and the rear looked good all the time. Strange!
The hardest tyres were what felt the best for me in the heat in the afternoon, and the front looked not too bad so that was a good sign. I didn’t really piece together a very good lap in first qualifying and was down in about 21st but wasn’t too worried because I knew we had a pretty good setting and a slipstream in that wind was worth easy ½ a second which I didn’t get.
Friday morning went well. We didn’t make any drastic changes to the bike as it felt pretty good and I put together some pretty decent strings of laps always around 12th-16th position. I ended up 16th in the session and was confidant for the afternoon as I still didn’t get a tow off anybody like most other riders were doing.
In the afternoon within 15 minutes I had bettered my Thursday time and gone up to 17th using old tyres front and rear. I did some more consistent times and came in for new rubber. I was using the hardest tyres because I was 95% certain that I was going to race on them. In the 250 we don’t get qualifiers either.
When I went to go back out with 15-minutes to go the bike would not start. I got off and the mechanics tried but it definitely wasn’t going to have it so that was the end of my session and I had to watch myself get bumped back down the screens to 21st!
