World Superbike / Supersport 2005

FPR riders Steve Martin and Garry McCoy will start tomorrow’s races at the eighth round of the Superbike World Championship from the third row of the Brands Hatch grid.

The Australian pair made further progress during the morning qualifying session - Steve improving his time by half a second while Garry slashed more than a second off his best lap of yesterday - to qualify for Superpole in 13th and 16th places respectively.

Garry shaved another three tenths to set the early Superpole pace at 1:27.672 and Steve was less than two hundredths of a second quicker, as Troy Corser claimed another pole position with a time of 1:26.672.

Both riders benefited from the dedication of the FPR team as several members returned to the team’s Burton headquarters to work into the small hours on the dyno to eliminate a minor problem that hindered full progress yesterday.

Steve said: “I felt I could have gone a bit quicker on my Superpole lap but I don’t think I could have made the second row. I feel good going into the races as I was able to do some good times on well-worn race tyres. I set one of my best times on a rear that had done 17 laps. The starts are going to be very important here and, luckily for us, it’s not too much of a long run into the first corner. I have been starting really well and if that continues it will make the races a heck of a lot easier.”

Garry said: “I am definitely happy with the Superpole result considering I only just got into Superpole this morning. I was fairly happy with the lap, although I went a bit wide on the penultimate turn and hit the ripple strips for only the second time this weekend. I was also pretty close to the grass down the back straight and that’s not a nice place to be looking at grass! The morning qualifying session was a bit up and down as I had a gearbox problem on one bike and the number two bike has a slightly different feeling in the chassis which, with all the bumps on this track, is not too helpful. And I didn’t actually make too much progress in the afternoon free practice as I had to stick with my second bike, but right at the end of the session we lowered the rear ride height and it seemed to improve the balance. We will have to wait on the weather to decide on tyres but we will definitely need good starts here.”