JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s James Ellison did not have the most positive starts to his MCE British Superbike race weekend at Thruxton and was outside the top twenty on the free practice timesheets on the Friday, and failed to make it out of Q1 in qualifying on Saturday.
But his team and the rider worked hard on the ZX-10R and his crew worked on the engine and tried to get the power delivery to feel a bit smoother.
Ellison is inside the top six in the overall standings, and in the end he was able to bag 20 points and made up for his zero points haul at the last round at Snetterton.
One thing that did work in the Cumbrian’s favour was that when many of the riders experienced tyre wear issues, Ellison’s tyres came good and with five laps remaining surged up the field to finish fifth in race one and seventh in race two. But he is still not finding the pace on new tyres - something the Kawasaki racer hopes to be resolved for the next round at Brands.
“It was a slow start for all of us. In the first session we were 21st, 22nd and 23rd and collectively as a team we got together and we all sat in the office and all the riders explained the issues we were having and everyone was having the same problem so we were all saying the same thing,” said Ellison, speaking to bikesportnews.com.
“At the minute it is down to doing a bit of engine work after this and getting the power delivery a bit smoother. The engine is really strong but the power is in the wrong area for the bike at the minute. We have been struggling to set the bike up.
“We did what we could this weekend to get through it and calm the areas down where there was an increase in power and try to smooth everything out, and we clubbed together and managed to pull through pretty strong results. Fifth in race one was good, we made some little tweaks to the bike in race two because we thought we need a little bit more on new tyres.
“Again as the race wore down my tyres came - as everyone else’s tyres dropped off I was able to use my bike a little bit better like I did in race one. But on new tyres we still don’t have the package to run at the front and that is something that we want to fix between now and Brands.”
