Honda Racing’s Dan Linfoot came away from the MCE British Superbike test at Oulton Park in a positive frame of mind, after finishing the day third fastest overall.
His 1’35.226 lap was only two tenths off the quickest time, that was eventually set by JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam, but what Linfoot found most satisfying was how well the SC0 tyres lasted out on the track, and how tyre life did not appear to be an issue today.
Linfoot was able to do over 20 laps before changing a tyre and that puts him in good stead for the races next weekend at the circuit. The Northerner has enjoyed his time out on the track, and has only made minimal changes, including shortening the wheel base and shock length on his Fireblade.
“It has been nice to ride here again, and have a good day here. I ended up third and I have just been working all day with trying to improve the feeling of the bike around the track,” said Linfoot, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the track.
“You come here with a previous setting or last year’s setting, and one or two sessions is getting your riding up to scratch again. I am trying to improve session on session and we did a few changes to the Fireblade that made it better.
“We have got a new engine spec compared to last year so the first thing was does the engine suit the track as well as last year, or better? I think we ended up in an OK place, and we have to be positive and look forward to the race.
“Today was sort of confirmation of wheel base, length and shock length. We had a different setting on the head angle and we just wanted to reconfirm that, and also try a little change to the angle on it, so we brought the angle back by half a degree and shortened the wheel base and other than that nothing major, just chassis balance and laps.
“The biggest thing for me is lots of laps, because you do a short run and by the time you have understood it and come in to the pits and done a twenty minute change you only have five minutes left to the session - so you have to get some laps in.
“Fortunately the Honda doesn’t seem to wear the tyre as bad as some of the other bikes do and I expect here to race an SC0 without an issue. Like today for example we are only swapping a tyre at 22 to 25 laps, so a race wont be a problem.”
