In the latest of his exclusive columns for Crash.net, Foggy Petronas rider Craig Jones describes his fortunes at the Brno test, the following Misano race weekend, and then testing at Lausitzring prior to this weekend's Brno race return...
At the start of June we headed to Brno for a three-day Pirelli test, with the plan being to get a good set-up for the Czech race in July and also to keep an eye on straight line stability after my 'wobble' experiences at Monza.
Whilst I raced at Brno last year, with Ten Kate in the Supersport Championship as a stand in for Fujiwara who was injured, I’d never ridden a Superbike there before. I was expecting it to feel much faster on a Superbike, like at other tracks, but because the track at Brno is so wide you lose the true feeling and sense of the increased speed - but you do go up the hills faster for sure!
I started slowly and was consistently improving until I hit a bit of a brick wall with the set-up when trying one of the Pirelli development tyres. But then I tried a 2006 tyre which had loads more grip and was in a totally different league so helped solve some of the problems. Towards the end of the session Chris Walker gave me a bit of a tow and I was about a second up on my best time when the session was red-flagged.
I got straight back onto my day one pace the next morning and just worked through some more tyre testing and chassis set-up. I had a niggling electrical problem in the morning but got that sorted before lunch, so I was able to knock another second off my lap time before rain set in for the afternoon, which obviously stopped play and meant we had to change the focus of the test. A dry line started to appear towards the end of the day, and although the track was still quite slippery and greasy, we tested what we could at that pace to try and make the most of our track time.
We didn’t change too much on the bike for the final day and I was still able to improve my lap times. I was pleased to go faster every day but more so, to reduce my gap to Steve (Martin) on race tyres. I came away from the test feeling confident with my progress and happy that we had a good base starting point for the race weekend at Brno.
The following week we headed to Misano for the sixth round of the championship which I was really looking forward to and felt positive about, especially with that being off the back of a good test at Brno. We’d tested at Misano back in April so I at least had some experience of the track under my belt. It’s got a couple of hard-racing sections which suit me as I’m good on the brakes and I love the flat-out top gear corner, Curvone, onto the back straight.
I thought we had moved on leaps and bounds since the test there, so I don’t really know what went wrong on the Friday. I was struggling with the feel of the bike, especially at the front, and lost a lot of confidence. But I managed to put that behind me on Saturday and set consistently faster times during the afternoon free practice session. After the nightmares of the day before we decided I should just try Steve’s settings and although we have different riding styles, I soon started to get a feel for those, the bike seemed to turn better and I got back my confidence.
In the first race I got a good start and was in front of some decent guys. And I was not going too badly but as soon as the tyres lost a bit of grip my lap times dropped. Then there was a problem with the gear position sensor and the bike was running on into the corners. I was also battling with high water temperatures as well and that killed the power a little bit. But I closed the gap on the leaders in the second race and I can take encouragement from a weekend that started dismally. The aim that weekend was to finish both races, which I hadn’t done for a while, and which I did do with two 21st positions, and then make headway at the next few circuits.
I then had a few weeks off the bike with no races or tests, so I was itching to get back in the seat on Saturday for the first day of our three-day test at EuroSpeedway in Germany. I was really pleased with the progress we made with the set-up of my Petronas FP1. Jack always emphasises to me the importance of going out and being consistent and I’ve taken that in - but not just by being consistent but also being consistently faster.
