In the latest of his exclusive columns for Crash.net, Foggy Petronas rider Craig Jones describes his fortunes at Brno, through Assen and finally, his points scoring run at Lausitzring...
So much to report over the last few rounds, so stay with me!
We headed to Brno for the seventh round off the back of a really good three day test at Lausitzring in Germany and in a really positive frame of mind. We’d had a good test at Brno the month before where I was able to put in some good and consistent lap times, and then at Lausitzring we made even further progress with the set up of my PETRONAS FP1 to take forward into the rest of the season.
I like the track at Brno as it’s really wide and fast with a variety of sections. I also had past experience of racing there which was a help, as I was a stand in rider last year for Fujiwara with Ten Kate in the Supersport Championship.
My aim was just to try and have another productive race weekend, get some more solid race finishes under my belt and also try to keep reducing the gap between me and Steve.
The heat was absolutely sweltering from the Friday onwards and I set my fastest time of the day in the morning free practice, although it was frustrating to be almost a second off my pace from the test because the grip was poor so it was a bit of a lottery to do decent times. Everyone was struggling with grip but the other bikes had more power and torque to pull them up the long hill. I know the times I was capable of doing at the test so I chose to stick with the set up we found at Lausitzring earlier that week and just push even harder the next day when the temperatures were forecast to be lower.
But the morning qualifying session on the Saturday was filled with niggling problems and I ended up 27th on the grid, which was a massive shame as I was sure I was in with a chance of making it into superpole.
