For the afternoon I was quite confident I could do alright. It hadn’t rained for a couple of hours prior to the session so the track didn’t have as much standing water on it did in the morning. I didn’t start the session fast enough and make the most when the track was at it’s best before it started to rain after about 20 minutes. I had a couple of bike problems in the last 15 minutes of the session, mainly to do with the temperature, which didn’t allow me to get into much of a rhythm and I didn’t get a good lap in which was a bit annoying. Even so I was happy with the bike and felt that if Sunday was going to be wet then I would be ready.
On Sunday morning the skies were reasonably clear and it looked like we were going to have a dry one. Morning warm-up was mainly dry but with some damp patches and considering the conditions the times were pretty fast. I was about 1.4secs off my qualifying time, with a full tank of fuel, old front tyre and with the engine set safe for running in new pistons. I was 17th, around about where I wanted to be and with the sort of people who I should be with.
I was looking forward to the race and getting stuck in, but about halfway around the warm-up lap my bike cut-out momentarily and from that moment on I couldn’t change gear using the quickshift. I thought about coming into pit lane but by the time the team had found the problem and I’d got back out I figured there would be no real sense in that and maybe it would correct itself.
My start was so-so. The first gear we have to use at that circuit is quite tall so it’s difficult to really fire the bike off the line but I got away about even with the rest of the grid so it wasn’t so bad. I avoided the carnage of the first corner and then was set in behind Cardenas. I got passed by a couple in the first lap where I was having to manually change gear. After each gear change the bike would misfire slightly and cost me some drive. At the start of the second lap I was in behind Poggiali and French rider Cluzel in 17th.
