Steve Martin found himself in the unusual situation of returning to DFX Honda, just over a week after being told his ride had disappeared due to a lack of budget, at Donington Park last weekend.
As if that uncertainty wasn't enough, the Australian - now riding on a race-by-race basis - suffered a weekend of niggling technical issues, prompting a total wire loom change and bold revisions to the balance of his bike after morning warm-up.
Whilst this rectified a 'cutting out' electrical problem, Martin had to pull in on lap nine of race one for a suspension setting adjustment. Those changes proved positive and Martin achieved the fastest speed through the speed trap on his way to finishing five laps down in 19th.
A good start combined with a revised fuelling configuration then brought a 13th place in race two, one place behind permanent team-mate
Michel Fabrizio, who had collected 14th in race one.
"At least I finished both races, but not in positions anywhere near where I know we can be," declared Martin. "This weekend has proved that there really is a lot of work to be done on the bikes to make them competitive for both Fabrizio and me, as 12th and 13th [in race two] is just nowhere and not at all our full potential. We need to start developing the bikes now or that's where we're going to be staying, which is very frustrating for us as riders and for the team.
"It may not seem like it from the results, but we have actually made some good positive steps forward today and the base setting of the bike now needs refining, along with a lot of work on the electrics and engine mapping in order to achieve competitiveness with the overall bike package."
Looking ahead, Martin has mixed feelings about his and the team's potential at round four of the 2007 series.
"Valencia is where we've done all our winter testing and so we should have a good advantage there. But unfortunately, the bikes are being taken straight to Valencia from
Donington, and so any development work will now have to be done on the Thursday and Friday of the race weekend which is far from ideal," he explained.
