Tough qualifying at Donington Park for Thomas.
Dean Thomas and his Samsung Suzuki team had a qualifying session to forget at Donington Park at the penultimate round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship. Thomas suffered front end grip problems and traffic on his fast lap all of which saw him relegated to twenty fifth place on the grid.
“We’ve been struggling a bit all weekend. It is a front grip issue with this bike and Sean Emmett is on my spare bike this weekend and he is having a very similar problem but not quite as bad. We are running slightly different spec forks and so on and we have just been struggling,” he explained, “This afternoon we chucked in a soft race tyre and went out and did a few laps but didn’t go any quicker than I did on a normal hard race tyre which proves it is not a rear grip issue it is definitely a front issue. Then I went out on qualifier and went quick though the first two splits and then got hung up behind Hutchinson in the last one. Basically, a rough day at the office really. Bring on tomorrow!”
Qualifying was difficult as the entire season has been, “It has been a really difficult year this year. I mean Samsung has worked hard and Dienza has worked hard to put a good package together and they have done a good job,” said Thomas.
There is only so much progress that could be made with the machinery and they have done all in their power as Thomas went on to say, “The thing has been that the bikes are not quite as competitive as we need and as the rounds are ticking on we are limited with the amount of progress we can make with this bike, we can’t make anymore. Everybody else can still go forward and we can’t and it is starting to show, the extra guys are pulling in front of us now and we are gradually dropping down the list.”
Sean Emmett has made a welcome return to the team and has backed up everything that Thomas has said, “Having Sean on board is really good as he has pretty much said everything that I have, which means we are doing everything that we can and it shows the team are doing their best. It is a matter of just getting this weekend done with and move onto Brands and hopefully things will work a little bit better there. That is this year, there is not much we can do other than do the best we can and wrap it up and see what happens next year.”
With the season drawing to a close, Thomas is yet to disclose his plans for next year saying, “I do know exactly what I’m doing, how I’m doing it and what with and so on and so on and at Brands we will announce it all. I’m looking forward to it.”
