Reigning Superbike World Champion Troy Corser had a disappointing Brands Hatch when tyre woes kept him off the podium. Here, the Australian talks about his weekend in his Crash.net column...
Well guys what can I say? I was confident of running at the front but the tyres just weren’t holding out, in race one my rear had gone after ten laps and in race two we changed to a harder rear but I struggled to maintain the pace of the front runners.
I had hoped for a front row start and I felt confident we could have had a good chance at pole position. In free practice just before Superpole I did a 1min 25.7secs lap and I pretty much tried to match it really in Superpole. Unfortunately, I made a small mistake in Superpole in turn two, went a little bit wide and it cost me one tenth, then I got myself up out of the seat coming through the third split through Sheene curve. It wasn’t almost a crash but it got me out of the seat a bit and I had to roll off. I lost three or four tenths just right there. I was pretty happy with the race set up and my lap times were consistent.
I was expecting a three way battle as in all the free practice and qualifying sessions I think the most consistent was Bayliss, myself and Haga and we were able to do mid 1 min 26s for three, four, five laps and then high 1min 26s and low 1min 27s and everyone starts around 27s. At Brands a good start is really important basically if you can get in front with the first two or three you can really get away as everyone else is battling and slowing each other up in the corners. You basically lose a second straight away on a lap time if someone goes underneath you and you run a bit wide.
