Unfortunately we didn’t account for needing any spare parts like that and we had to go back to Donington after just 8 laps. I was reasonably satisfied with the very first impressions of the bike but knew that it would be a bit different on a track like
Donington, so the real teller would be on Friday morning.
On Friday I was looking forward to trying the bike again. The first session was just learning the bike but it didn’t take too long before I was comfortable with it. I immediately noticed one problem with it in the first session which I have never been used to before. The bike felt seriously long, bus-like! It was extremely difficult to turn down through Craner and up towards McLean’s compared to what I have been used to in the past.
All day we worked towards making the bike shorter and lowering the front to try and get it to turn better on the gas. From the morning session on Friday to the afternoon session we made quite a big step and improvement to the bike but we struggled to find anything else after that. Normally, to keep the first long right flat out before Craner isn’t too much of a problem, and also under the bridge at Starkey’s just before you flick right for McLean’s, normally I don’t have too much of a problem here but I was having to come off the gas early to get the front to dive and turn and then get on the gas again, a bit of a choppy way of doing things compared to what I have been used too but this was the only way I could get the bike to turn and set myself up for the next corner without being off line.
Also something else that was very strange is that never once in the hundreds of laps I have done at Donington have I had to use the kerb coming onto the Dunlop straight. Always on the Aprilia, I could miss the kerb by a metre without any effort and probably could have done more if I wanted to. With the Honda I was fighting the bike off it every lap, I couldn’t help but use it which was underlining the turning on the throttle problems I was having.
