McAMS Yamaha’s James Ellison held the lap record at the Brands Hatch Indy circuit and during free practice one this morning he was able to better the existing 45.212 to set a new outright record of 45.097 - helped in no small part by a new swingarm.
The Cumbrian set his fastest lap on the SC0 rear, but still had a strong, consistent pace on the harder option SC1 Pirelli tyre too. There was less than half a second difference between the hard and soft options with Ellison running 45.4s on the SC1 during the second free practice outing.
What has improved pace is a new factory-spec swingarm. Yesterday his crew shortened it by taking using a different link and it has helped with tyre wear too. Ellison is so close to a sub 45-second lap and he is confident that there are riders on the grid that can better a 45.0 tomorrow.
“We did that fastest lap on the zero, but even with the one I think we were running 45.4 so that’s only four tenths off with the harder tyre,” said Ellison, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the circuit.
“With the zero on lap 30 we did a 45.5. Over the 30 lap race distance it is half a second distance between my best lap and my worst lap. So really, really happy with the consistency. The swingarm has been a big help, certainly with tyre wear and the boys have done a mega job, there was a lot of work involved and the boys stayed up until 1am some nights this week to get the swingarm ready, and we made some improvements.
“We are 0.2 on anybody in the last sector, but we are losing 0.2 in the first sector so we are something like seventh through sector one, it is turn two at the Hairpin [where we are losing time]. We are going with some heavy springs tomorrow - then we will be flying. You have to get every corner bang on, there is definitely some of us out there who are capable of doing 44’s, but someone is going to do it tomorrow.”
