Byrne on top despite frustrations

Shane Byrne has described his second free practice session at Oulton Park as “really, really frustrating” despite topping the times for Be Wiser Ducati.

In a session which was stalled by two red flag periods Byrne produced the top time in FP2 with a 1m 34.868s having ended the morning session second quickest just behind Honda’s Jason O’Halloran.

Byrne is reportedly testing a new swingarm with his Be Wiser Ducati but saw his afternoon session hampered by chatter as he struggled for feeling from his Panigale R.

As a result the six-time BSB champion called his FP2 session “inconclusive” but was still content with his pace ahead of qualifying and the races at the Cheshire track.

“We were fast this afternoon but it was a really, really frustrating session,” Byrne said. “We had some problems with the bike in that session and the bike developed a lot of chatter and around Oulton Park that’s never a good thing.

“There’s a lot of places here when you run on the side of the tyre really, really fast into corners and you need the thing to be on point to steer and to be able to pick the gas up and I was really, really struggling.

“We put a new pair of wheels in just to see whether or not that would fix the chatter, and to a certain degree it did but to a certain degree it didn’t. Then literally one lap into those pair of tyres the red flag came out anyway, so it’s been a bit of an inconclusive afternoon.

“I had very high expectations for this afternoon because this morning went well but that’s racing and that’s what practice is all about. It’s better to find problems today or tomorrow than it is to find them on Monday morning.

“So overall we’ve been second and first in both sessions so it’s a positive start but we’ve certainly got a little bit of work to do to get to the bottom of why we’ve started developing these issues.”