After the race and on the flight back from China I had a good chat with my chassis mechanic, Alessandro, and we talked about the geometry of my bike. The problem was that when I had all the issues with not being able to fit on the bike we fitted extended bar clip-on's and that meant that I couldn’t turn the bike as well. With this we had to steepen up the bike and put more weight on the front and take weight off the rear so I could turn it how I wanted.
In Turkey I got my extended seat and took off the extended clip-on’s but we didn't change the bikes geometry, so we decided that it was probably way too steep for how the bike was now set. We made a plan of how to start the weekend in Le Mans which was more in the direction of making the bike flatter so I got the best in both areas. I could turn the bike whilst still having good grip in the rear. In China, I think my problem was mostly coming from the way my bike was set, not the tyre being too soft.
After the Chinese GP we flew into Paris and then had a connection to Birmingham with Air France (otherwise known as Air Chance!) and they lost our luggage - which was handy! After a couple of days at home we flew to Le Mans on Thursday morning. The first session in Le Mans I immediately felt a difference with the bike and most importantly it was for the better.
We didn’t get too many dry laps in because it started to rain but I was happy with the bike. Even in the wet I felt pretty good. I didn’t get too near the limit but was doing good times in comparison to everybody else and it was nice to have that sort of feeling again! I ended the session in 13th, looking forward to getting back out in the afternoon.
