Tarran Mackenzie has revealed his delight after finishing the opening day of 2019 Bennetts British Superbike action in the runner-up spot.

The McAMS Yamaha rider finished less than three tenths of a second behind team-mate and practice leader Jason O’Halloran as the two both went under the lap record.

But the find of the day for the diminutive Scotsman was a slight change with his R1, which he admitted has made a big improvement to his performance and made the bike easier to wrestle around the National circuit.

Mackenzie heads into tomorrow’s qualifying with confidence after his team unearthed a problem between practice sessions today, and now believes he’s in good stead for qualifying – despite having finished the recent test in eighth overall.

“Coming here from the test I wasn’t sure,” he told Bikesport News. “I’d struggled a little bit and after this morning I was thinking, ‘it’s the same problems.’

“But between FP1 and FP2 the team found what the problem was and we fixed it so it feels a lot like my bike did last year, which is nice. It made a massive difference and I’ve got a smile back on my face.

“Tomorrow we are going to come out and try it again. I did a long run in FP2 on the same tyre, which was quite good, so in qualifying we should have a good chance I think.”