Ray ‘confident’ ahead of WorldSBK debut, not ‘stressed about lap time’
Two rounds of the 2023 WorldSBK season have been and gone, meaning six races are already in the books although all of them took place without Ray who will make his debut later this month at Assen.
Riding for the Motoxracing Yamaha team, Ray is only competing at the European rounds which means he won’t finish the season in Argentina.
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However, Ray will have nine rounds to show what he's capable of and based on the latest two-day test in Barcelona, race pace is already looking strong for the British Superbike champion.
"It’s nice to get the two days testing done," Ray told WorldSBK.com. "Obviously, Aragon didn’t go to plan. It was very positive here. We had a full day on Day 1, I think we did 70 laps, so it was nice to finally find my feet and work in a direction we needed to.
"Unfortunately, I had a little bit of a crash on Day 2 in the morning on the second lap. I back shifted but the bike didn’t backshift when I needed it to and just ran into the gravel and crashed.
"I was back out in the afternoon and we were just working through what we needed to. It would’ve been nice to maybe improve on the lap time.
"I think a lot of the times were done in the morning and I saw a few people put Superpole laps in. I’m not stressed about the overall lap time, I’m confident with the actual race pace and the pace we’ve got on used tyres."
With the other 21 riders already having six races under their belt, an element of rustiness could come into play for Ray although the Brit has stressed he feels very good about where he’s at despite his new R1 being completely different to that of the BSB-spec bike from last season.
Ray added: "We’re slowly making progress now. It’s funny because they’re both R1s but this is completely different from what I had in BSB. On the electronics side, I can definitely do with more laps and to learn a lot more on that.
"The chassis is now starting to become more comfortable. It’s just going to take time. We’ve not had many days testing, the other teams have been testing and two rounds under their belt.
"I don’t think we’re far away and we’re working in the right direction and I’m looking forward to starting at Assen."
