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Written by Nigel Jones on May 25, 2008 at 11:05
After an incident packed weekend the STP Motorsport MV Agusta British Superbike Team recorded its best ever qualifying position ahead of Monday’s British Superbike races at Donington Park.
The freak accident in warm up on Saturday, when a gust of wind blew several pitboard numbers onto the track, one of which punctured the radiator on the MV Agusta causing Chris Burns to highside as he entered turn one, meant another late night for the pit crew. They delivered a bike that was quick enough to put Chris second fastest in the Daily Star Cup standings in today’s free practice. However, technical issues as a result of yesterday’s crash would mean more work being done between free practice and qualifying.
The first for laps of the wet qualifying session highlighted suspension issues and the STP Motorsport technicians put in another huge effort to swap front and rear suspension at a cost of almost 25 minutes of the session. At this time the MV Agusta had not posted a qualifying time, so the pressure was on to get back on track and put in some quick laps in difficult conditions. The end result of second in the cup standings and 12th overall, giving a third row start, is just reward for the effort that the team has put in so far this weekend.
Chris Burns, Rider:
“I am extremely happy with third row of the grid as I know I can go faster in the race. Given the problems that the team has had this weekend, none of our own making, to qualify in 12th position and only about 0.5 second behind Gary Mason in the Cup, who had the full session to work with, is a fantastic result. So far this season I have not qualified well and I have had to push hard early in the races to make up places. This has affected performance late in the race and stopped me from finishing higher up the order. Now, I have qualified well, ahead of both Rizla Suzukis, and several other Superbike contenders, if I can get away with the fast guys I should be able to compete not only for the Superbike Cup win but also some serious Superbike Championship points as well.”
Warwick Nowland – Team Manager:
“We have witnessed all of the highs and lows of racing this weekend and we haven’t got to race day yet! Having to install a new engine on Friday evening combined with the freak accident on Saturday and a familiarisation process with the new electronics system the whole team has been under huge pressure. I am extremely pleased in the way that they have all responded and pulled together to deliver the results on track. Hopefully we can now translate this superb qualifying effort into race wins in the Cup and good points in the main championship.”
Simon Woods – Team Principal:
“At the start of the season we knew we had to have faith in the bike and the team to deliver results for STP Motorsport and MV Agusta. For such a small team we have been confronted with some serious challenges in the past few weeks and days and I am happy to say that we have handled them well, coming up with solutions to every problem that we have faced. The most encouraging thing from today’s result is that we know that the bike has so much more to give and we are now in a position where we can start to extract that extra performance. The fact that we have qualified so well with what is our old engine, gives us great optimism for the coming rounds in the series and the races on Monday.”
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