Santander TAG’s Dan Linfoot will not go into this weekend’s Silverstone Bennetts British Superbike season opener aiming to tear up the trees.
The Yorkshireman has instead targeted a brace of top-five finishes in order to come away with a place in the top six which he aims to consolidate as the season progresses after finishing the Silverstone test in second place last week.
“I’m mindful that I need to take the weekend in the right way, I don’t want to turn up all guns blazing and end up in the gravel, I want to consolidate,” said Linfoot.
“That’s my key word at the moment, I want to consolidate and build strong points. I want to be a strong as possible and after the positive test we had last week I’m starting the weekend in a positive frame of mind, but the end goal for me is a couple of top five finishes.
“If we can push for a podium, then great, but I want to leave Silverstone in the top six of the Championship and then move onto the next rounds.
“I was pleasantly surprised at the end of the test at where we finished, after an interrupted winter testing programme. I went to that Silverstone test thinking ‘Ok we’re a little bit behind, we haven’t done many track laps, if any, on a Superbike so I just used it as an opportunity to get familiar with the bike and get ready for the following weekend’.
Obviously, it went better than planned and without chucking a load of tyres in we were quite competitive so that’s a great start. I don’t want to run before I can walk, it’s a great start but it’s very early days and we just need to see how we can progress from here really.
“Moving away from a team that you’ve been with for four years, you expect that it will take more than one or two rounds to click with the bike and the team, but the guys are great to get on with. I’d like to think I’m normal to get on with too, so we seem to be on the same hymn sheet already.
“I don’t want to turn the bike upside down, I just want to get familiar with it and ride it as it is at the moment.So that’s the plan, continue to build relationships with the lads and most importantly enjoy it.”
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