Thomas 16th at wet Mondello Park.
Dean Thomas has qualified his Samsung Suzuki in 16th place for round six of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Mondello Park in Ireland.
The weather has been typically Irish and rained incessantly as Thomas says, “It has been cold and wet! But its not gone too bad to be honest I mean the conditions have been terrible really for the last couple of days and we have no wet miles on these bikes so we have been out there most of the session just to get miles on and miles for meâ€
He has slotted into his usual position on the Suzuki, “Gets us up the pace and we’ve been running in the top twelve of fifteen which is our usual bracket for every session. I qualified in 16th which is not as good as we had hoped but not a million miles away either. Greg is twelfth and there are a few riders who are all over the show. Lap time wise I’m reasonably happy. We have made a few changes to the bike and we went backwards and then went forwards. There were things we didn’t think would work worked and it was all a bit strange we are making progress,†he commented.
The weather and the Mondello circuit has lead to an interesting grid which could play into Thomas’ hands, “The grid is mixed up and it may benefit us plus the weather is set to improve. For the fact that nobody has had any dry time it could actually benefit us tomorrow so I’ll get out there and see what happens.â€
In the four week break since Snetterton the team haven’t done any testing but have worked on some little improvements, “The guys have been prepping and cleaning the bikes and getting more organised and structured. We haven’t had a chance to do any miles on the bikes but on the flip side we don’t have anything to test on this bike it is an ’05 John Reynolds machine so it is at its best.â€
Thomas has admitted that the twisting Irish circuit is not his favourite, “Mondello is not my favourite track, I’ve been here four years and I’ve had one decent year where I was front row and got two front rows. Be good to have a reasonable result and move onto the next round,†he finished.
