Oulton Park Round 2 of the British Superbike Championship
Round 2 of the British Superbike championship lead us to the rollercoaster of a circuit… Oulton Park. It is a circuit that I have grown and developed at over the years having good results here last year and following a strong opening Round 1, and a strong test the week before, I knew there was a chance we could have a strong weekend.
Free practice 1 we had a good start ending p1 in GP2 with a couple of improvements to be made into Free practice 2. Following some minor tweaks to the bike we managed to do a personal best lap time round the track of a 1:40.3 with some slight hindrances towards the end of the session which prevented us getting to a slightly quicker lap time.
Qualifying was a slightly interesting experience with it being dry for most of the day and then the rain decided to come into play 30 minutes before we were due to head out. The super bikes did a good job of drying the track before our session, with the only damp place being druids. We started out on wet tyres but knew straight away on the sighting lap that it would be worth swapping to intermediates. I completed one lap and my knee slider clipped a kerb and came off. I came in instantly which also gave us the opportunity to put a slick rear tyre in with 8 minutes to go in the session. We pushed on in the closing laps having to get through some traffic, but we managed to put my fastest lap in at the end taking qualifying pole position in GP2s and 15th overall.
Race 1 shortly followed qualifying with the track being completely dry for the 12 lap sprint race. I managed to get a good start making up a couple of positions and battling with Jack Scott for the lead in GP2. We had a couple of Supersport bikes in the mix with us as well. Jack made a slight mistake mid way through the race causing him to drop back. I knew I needed to get past some of the super sports in order to have better track position at the end of the race, and unfortunately I followed Caolan a little to closely into the first chicane, hitting the sausage kerb and getting some air time. This almost caused myself to run off track and therefore ended up conceding 1st place in the class and bringing home a solid 2nd.
Race 2 was the 16 lap feature race, very physically demanding towards the end of the race especially with the lonely race that I ended up having. Doing a very consistent pace, but after making a small mistake early on in the race I lost the leading pack which made for a lonely race on my on but finishing in 2nd once again. A lot of positives to take going in to round 3 at Donington Park, a track a really enjoy and one that will suit the bike as well.