FPR Report

Luck was not on the side of Craig Jones and his Foggy PETRONAS Racing team-mate Steve Martin for the eighth round races of the Superbike World Championship at Brands Hatch, Great Britain.

Located in garage 13 in pit-lane, Craig was forced to retire on lap 13 of both races while Steve finished just out of the points in 16th and 17th places.

Troy Bayliss stretched his championship lead with a clear win in the first race but was pegged back when Noriyuki Haga clinched a hard-fought victory over the Australian in race two.

Craig’s tale of woe started when oil leaked onto his rear tyre in the first race, forcing him to pull in. Steve was lying in the points with three laps remaining before a gear-shifter failure dropped him down to 17th.

There was more misfortune for Craig in race two when his rear tyre spun on the rim, eventually making the bike impossible to ride. Steve enjoyed a problem free second race but finished just five seconds off a point-scoring finish in the PETRONAS FP1’s last race on British soil.

Craig said: “When the tyres were good in the first race I was going well, but as soon as they went off I started to struggle. I knew there was a problem when I went into Stirlings and the bike felt out of character for that corner. I was actually lucky to save it when I was nearly thrown over the bars because of the oil on the rear wheel. The problems in race two started after three laps and got progressively worse. By mid-race it was bouncing me out of the corners and I was struggling to hold on. It is so frustrating because we had solved our earlier problems and I was riding well. I was catching a group that eventually finished in the points so, with just a tiny bit of luck, I feel I could have scored my first points.”

Steve said: “I was quite happy with the first race because I felt I was riding well. I was pleased with the consistency of the lap times until I suffered a gear shifter problem with three laps to go and dropped out of the points because I had to change gears manually and that cost me more than half a second a lap. It may sound crazy but I was also pleased with the second race. I was riding well, pushing on the limit, and I was again happy with the consistency until the tyres went off. As soon as that happened, about three quarters of the way through, I was unable to carry as much corner speed. It has been a difficult weekend but there are positives that we can take into the final four rounds.”