Honda Racing’s Dan Linfoot may have started from pole in the second MCE British Superbike race at Silverstone, but the lack of track time on the harder SC1 tyre compound meant that he dropped down the order and crossed the finishing line in ninth.

The Northern lad did manage to push his Fireblade up to fifth in the opening race, where he opted for the softer tyre option in warmer conditions, which worked for him. Linfoot did manage to finish both races with a solid batch of points for his team, and currently resides in seventh in the overall standings.

“Well to be honest 99 percent of the time I have ridden this bike I have been with the SC0 tyre and I have always believed that with the SC1, I am not fast,” said Linfoot, speaking to bikesportnews.com from the circuit.

“Given I had to use SC1 in the second race - going back to race one I used SC0 and it sort of chewed up with four or five laps to go and I went back, which I expected as it was a cold day. I expected it to wear - but it obviously put me on pole for race two.

“So we thought it has got cooler lets try the SC1. Five or six laps in I thought this is going OK. I thought this feels good and I can do the lap time OK. Once I started to lose a little bit of grip off the edge I started to get unstable and started to come off the corner with the bike - in the end having to close the throttle and then for that reason I started to get beat up by other guys, and then someone else would pass and it spoilt my rhythm. It was really after I settled in after that I managed to get back in my rhythm, so not as happy with the second race and ninth isn’t great.”

Conditions were mixed during the race weekend at the Northamptonshire circuit with track conditions varying from damp to wet to dry, meaning Linfoot did not get as much time as he wanted out on the harder compound tyre.

Linfoot added: “Again I haven’t done a lot with the SC1 so that’s my biggest down fall really. Hopefully when we get back to other tracks where we don’t need to use the SC1 and we can go back with the SC0. I believe our bike manages the SC0 quite well, but it was just too cold for it this weekend, so the rest of the season should be OK with our preferred tyre.”

“I feel I can ride ok, but we need to make it a better package over distance. Also from my point of view I need to understand the SC1 more over race distance, so we weren’t really prepared for that to be honest.

“FP1 was cut short with oil and I did one lap, and FP3 was damp and then straight into qualifying on an SC0’s so what do you do?! We hadn’t had an SC1 in the bike hardly so I didn’t feel best prepared for it - but we got some finishes and I think we are seventh in the championship, so lets keep working - it is a long season.”