I was up for a good result and nearly got it. I was ninth catching eighth with eight laps to go when the warning light on the dash came on to say that I had lost oil pressure, which meant I had to pit. Initially I was really hacked off but I got over it quick enough, as from my point of view there wasn’t much else I could have done. Race two was playing on my mind, as five DNF’s in a row doesn’t give a rider a lot of confidence especially when you have to race keeping one eye on the dash looking out for potential warning lights.
Initially I was going really well and I felt like I was pushing hard but my lap times just kept dropping off. Other than the bike running hotter than in race one everything seemed okay. Everything in WSBK these days is so close that you can’t afford a drop in consistency throughout the races. Even though I finished less than 12 seconds off the top ten it still wasn’t good enough for any points. Never the less I finished the race and really hope that we can get some race consistency, although it’s hard because we are continually pushing the limit of the bike and engine to try and get good results.
In a perfect world we would have a completely separate test team so that we weren’t trying new things during the WSBK weekend. The alternative would be to just leave the engine in a tune that we know will finish the race, but as a racer that would be more soul destroying than the DNFs, as it would mean having no chance at all against the 1000 four cylinders. While we are still developing the bike it gives me motivation to keep pushing hard and having a go, so I guess this makes it easier to put up with the little problems we have had.
