PBM Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne felt he could have pushed through to the 47 second bracket during the MCE British Superbike qualifying sessions at Knockhill, but a crash at Clark’s brought a premature end to his Q3 outing.
But Byrne had already done enough to bag pole from his team-mate, Stuart Easton, and Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes. Even though the reigning champ will start from P1 in the opening race tomorrow, he is still surprised with how he ended the qualifying session.
He is feeling a bit ‘frustrated’ after ending the day in the gravel, after experiencing an issue with the rear tyre, and pushing the front a bit too hard. But ultimately Byrne felt that he had more to give today, even after a super quick 48.153.
“I’m a little bit surprised with the outcome of qualifying. We all know what we think is an achievable lap time, and I planned for the time I thought I could do in that last session. I pushed hard, but it seemed like I was sliding on every single corner exit on the last run. I did a time that was good enough for pole, and a couple more close to it – but I think the rear tyre maybe wasn’t as good,” said Byrne.
“I thought ‘oh ok, I’ll run in a little hotter and be a bit more careful on the exit with the throttle,’ but trying that on my second lap I went into Clark’s like normal, released the brakes a little earlier to try and carry a bit more speed, and tucked the front tyre.
“It’s frustrating for that to happen, but at the end of the day I’m happy with the result. It’s PBM one-two, the times have been close; but I just thought we had maybe another two tenths or so there. I think for tomorrow we’ve worked really hard on race pace.
"Yesterday afternoon, my best lap time – that would have got us fairly high up today’s grid – came from the thirty third lap on the tyre. From that view, we should be cool – and with the times as close as they are, it should make for some pretty exciting racing!
“The qualifying is incredibly close, but I think tomorrow four or five of us will be able to go off at the front and hopefully one of those will be able to go off a little bit further! There’ll be come cool battles, because it’s a track that lends itself to that. “
