POSITIVE FIRST DAY AT SILVERSTONE FOR AIRWAVES DUCATI
Airwaves Ducati riders Shane Byrne and Leon Camier made a promising start to round 11 of the British Superbike Championship at Silverstone today. Shane, who needs just a top 10 finish this Sunday to be crowned 2008 Champion, finished both of the day’s practice sessions 3rd. Teammate Leon topped the timesheets in the morning and was 6th fastest in the afternoon.
Fresh from his second British Superbike victory a fortnight ago, Leon was immediately on the pace today. His best time of 1:26.927 came on lap 18 of 24 and was the fastest in first practice.
“I’m pretty happy with how today has gone. The practice session this morning really helped me to get into the flow of riding the Airwaves Ducati around here and then this afternoon allowed us to try some changes. Just before the second session was red flagged I had gone out to try something new, but unfortunately that will now have to wait until tomorrow. It’s looking really positive and we still have some adjustments to try tomorrow.”
Shane completed a total of 50 laps over the two sessions and recorded his best time of the day early on in second practice, matching Leon’s fastest lap of 1:26.927 from this morning.
“You can normally make assumptions before a race weekend as to which circuits the Airwaves Ducati will suit and which it won’t as much, but to be honest we weren’t too sure about Silverstone. Fortunately the Airwaves Ducati has worked really well straight away. I did a fairly long run in the morning session and then in the afternoon we went further than a full race distance with some good consistent times. I’ll look over the data with my Airwaves Ducati engineer this evening to identify ways in which we can make improvements for tomorrow and hopefully kick up a gear and go even quicker.”
Qualifying for round 11 of the Bennetts British Superbike championship commences tomorrow, Saturday September 27th 2008 at 1400.