Honda Racing’s Jason O’Halloran finished fifth in the final MCE British Superbike race at the Brands Hatch Indy circuit, and was even in podium contention during the 30-lapper.

It was clear to see that he improved his pace on the Fireblade from the first round at Donington and that was down to adaptations made during a test at Cadwell and at Mallory, which the Australian rider has described as ‘crucial’.

After the two days of testing O’Halloran and his crew have made a ‘big step forward’ and he is now 90 percent happy with the ride-by-wire and throttle connection, compared to feeling only 40 percent pleased with it at Donington.

The Honda team did not do many modifications to the ride-by-wire at the Indy track, but focused on chassis setup, but they will revisit the throttle connection at the Oulton Park official BSB test on Thursday.

“We have made a huge step forward from Donington, to think two weeks ago we were struggling to ride the bike and finish within 30 seconds of the leaders, to now finishing four seconds from the leaders and a couple of seconds from the podium,” said O’Halloran, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

“We are not far away now and we have some work to do, to make the bike feel like my own. But it wont be long before we are back up there. We have got the ride-by-wire to a point where we are 90 percent happy with it, and at Donington it was 40 percent, so we are a long way of sorting it as it is very young for the team and myself.

“I was just so happy to be able to ride the bike that I didn’t want to mess it up, so we worked on chassis. We left the ride-by-wire and throttle connection alone and we got to a point where I was half happy and we have a test this week so we can get back to work on that and make improvements.

“I was scared this weekend of making it bad again so we just left it alone and just worked on the chassis. The Cadwell Park test if I am honest was a little bit of a disaster. It was the final turning point for us to say that we needed to change something. I couldn’t ride the bike like Donington, and we made a big change in the direction we were heading with the way the throttle maps were being written.

“Then we went to Mallory Park and made a huge step forward and the bike was ride-able we could be confident with it and in control. The two test days were crucial and they made big decisions on the way we were headed.”