Be Wiser Ducati’s Shane Byrne was the second fastest rider in the MCE British Superbike free practice session this afternoon, but his initial feeling with the Panigale ‘wasn’t overly great’ at Assen.
He lapped a 1’36.850, but even though he is adamant that there is still more work to do on his Ducati he is happy with his pace which is ‘there or thereabouts’.
Byrne leads the series going into the penultimate round and was the quickest Showdown rider out on the TT circuit. He went 0.012 faster than title challenger, JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam during FP2.
Byrne feels he is still far from being ready for a race run with the Panigale and described today as ‘difficult’, but his pace shows he is still competitive. But his crew will look through the data tonight to improve the Ducati for qualifying.
“Today has actually been quite a difficult day; the initial lap time this morning came really easily with the bike but the initial feeling wasn’t overly great. We have tried a few things this morning and this afternoon and we have not quite hit the nail on the head yet. Some weekends with this bike you rock up and it feels great from the off and then others you have to do a little bit more work,” said Byrne.
“The good thing is now I feel that we still have quite a lot of work to do but from a pace point of view we are there or thereabouts so for that I am really happy, with what I know I still have in me and in the bike still I am happy. If I had to give you a one out of ten for how the day has been, I would probably say five because we have that work to do still.
“This time at Donington we were ready for a race run on Saturday morning and we are far from that right now, but at the same time we are still competitive, so we will look over the data tonight and keep chipping away to find the better feeling tomorrow.”
