So so results for Thomas at Croft.
Dean Thomas and his Samsung Suzuki finished both races at round ten of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Croft. He took sixteenth place in race one and twelfth in race two.
Race one wasn’t easy as Thomas explains, “It was a bit of a struggle in the first one. We spent the last two days testing out our tyre allocation and we found a tyre that is ok. We have been suffering with the bike all weekend, just as you are turning in you hit the ripples and it chatters its way across the track rather than holding the turn.”
With this happening all around the track it soon slowed down the hard riding Aussie. “When you add it up at each turn it is quite a bit of time, Dunlop gave us a different tyre that some of the guys were running to give it a test this morning. We had a bit of a clutch issue with the bike in morning warm-up so it was impossible to tell if it was helping or not. We decided to gamble it and try but it didn’t really work. Six laps and it started to taper off and we started to have trouble with it. So race one was no where near good enough.”
The team decided to play it safe in race two going back to a proven base setting. “Second race we reverted back to what we knew and it was a much faster race for us. Much, much faster race, the lap times were a lot better. I struggled on the last six laps as it dropped off a little bit, it is not a tyre fault or anything it is a bike fault you know. The bike is wearing the tyres out quicker than it should, but at least with the tyre we are running in the second race it was a bit more durable,” he explained.
“It was a twelfth place finish which is where we normally are, we seem to qualify there and finish there. It is another round done, it is a little frustrating. The Samsung guys are working hard and everybody is doing a good job, it is just so competitive. To finish in the top seven or eight is really hard work and we are doing the best we can,” he said.
With nothing to lose at Cadwell the team are planning some radical changes to set-up which might pay off. “There are a few things we are going to try for Cadwell which we have been considering for a little while but we haven’t had the chance to do it. At Cadwell we are going to set the second bike up completely different and go down that path and see if it works,” concluded Thomas.
The eleventh round of Bennetts British Superbike Championship is on the 25th -27th August at Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire. Click here for timetable.
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Louise Cain
Vitesse PR
