The first session of the year was on a wet but drying track after some rain the previous night. It was a bit of a pain because I really needed to properly test these forks and the rebound problem only comes when I push hard, which was impossible in the conditions.
They felt OK but it was difficult to say whether the problem was gone, I would have to wait for a dry track in the afternoon. I was far down at the end of the session in 24th but wasn’t too bothered about that. A lot of people just did one lap on an almost dry track at the end of the session which bumped them up the order.
In the afternoon the sun was out and I was able to properly test the bike. It was a definite improvement to when I last properly used the forks at my first test in Barcelona. The bouncing was gone but the bike was still very nervous. We played around with the setting but were struggling to make any improvements. I wanted to be able to turn harder in the second half of the tight corners and hold a better line but it was difficult to find that feeling. At the end of the session I was a fair way off the pace in 24th.
I debriefed with my mechanics for a good 1 ˝ hrs and we came up with a possible solution, which was to shorten the bike, put harder front springs in and take off all preload. This would keep the front end further down into the corner and hopefully turn easier. Also that evening Jeremy Mc
Williams suggested that the forks may be riding on the oil at the bottom of the stroke so it may help to try to take a bit out. My mechanics agreed that it could probably help so we would try it the next morning.
