Rizla Suzuki pleased with qualifying at Brands Hatch
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Rizla Suzuki’s Tom Sykes and Atsushi Watanabe completed a successful but rain-hit qualifying session at Brands Hatch in Kent today, finishing in fifth and ninth places respectively.
The 50-minute session took place in cooler conditions than yesterday’s free practice but came to a premature halt with 5 minutes left to run due to heavy rain hitting the challenging 2.3 mile circuit. Sykes improved his times from the morning free practice session and was running close to a front row position when the rain started to fall.
Tom Sykes:
My lap times improved by 1.5secs taking us from 1min 28s this morning to 1min 26s, so just one more step forward and we will be there, I’m disappointed at missing out on the front row but we have been working on improving front end feel. I was on the front row of the grid and just got pipped as I came in for some adjustments.Shame the rain started as I think the lap I was on would have put me and my Rizla Suzuki on the front row for sure. The second row of the grid is ok I feel a podium is achievable from there. I’m looking forward to race day tomorrow. We have a few changes to make and looking at the data we can make another step forward so I can’t wait to get racing.
Watanabe continued to impress on his UK debut placing his Rizla Suzuki within the top ten which was the team’s aim. He spent his free practice sessions learning the demanding circuit and progressively dropped his lap times, improving by 1sec from free practice to qualifying.
I am not so happy being ninth, I wanted to be top five but my team is happy and we all work well together. I am still learning the track but now I look forward to the race that will teach me more.
Team Manager Jack Valentine was happy with the team’s progress over the weekend. He commented:
I’m pleased with how qualifying has gone. Shame it rained as Tom was on a quick lap and would have made the front row of the grid. Watanabe has been fantastic; we had hoped for top ten, and that is what he has achieved. He is competitive and has beaten riders who have raced here for years on his first time on track. All in all it has been a solid qualifying. We have good race set-up so I’m looking forward to it.
Pole position was taken by Ducati’s Shane Byrne with a time of 1min 25.832secs.
Racing gets under way tomorrow with race one at 1345 and race two at 1630.
Britsh Superbikes Brands Hatch Qualifying Results:
- 1: Shane Byrne (Ducati) 1:25.832
- 2: Cal Crutchlow (Honda) +0.323
- 3: Karl Harris (Yamaha) +0.532
- 4: Leon Haslam (Honda) +0.720
- 5: Tom Sykes (Rizla Suzuki) +0.809
- 6: Leon Camier (Ducati) +1.001
- 7: Simon Andrews (Yamaha) +1.094
- 8: Michael Rutter (Ducati) +1.142
- 9: Atsushi Watanabe (Rizla Suzuki) +2.061
- 10: Michael Laverty (Suzuki) +2.1 05
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