FP1 – Grant went out with a good understanding of the track from previous races. He got into a good rhythm running good times. Grant felt happy with the suspension but he felt he lacked a little in speed. This may have been down to the gearing he tried. Grant finished the session in 15th position. This was frustrating as he knew he could go a lot quicker.
Q1 – Grant went out on new tyres for the first of his qualifying sessions. Grant was suffering from no rear grip, this meant Grant had to come into the pits to try something different. Grant changed a couple of things, therefore going quicker to the tune of a 2.17.862, this left Grant in 19th position. Grant was not happy with this but he said he was still having problems with rear grip, he felt this was holding him back.
Q2 – Grant decided to keep the same tyres in from Qualifying 1 as he wanted to try something different. Grant didn’t like this so he went back to the same settings & had another stab at it. He managed to go .2 of a second quicker but this dropped him back to 25th on the grid. This left Grant very disappointed.
Warm-up – Grant opted to go back to the same settings he ran there in previous races & made sure everything was running okay on the bike, ready for the race.
Race – Grant got a good start, and jumped a couple of places up to around 18th. He they got settled into the race and worked his way up through the pack which left him in a battle for 14th position. Unfortunately for Grant he was strugglering with top speed & down the huge straight at Silverstone he was getting beaten everytime. Grant was 5mph down on top speed in the speed trap. As the race progressed Grant got his way in front but going down the back straight on the last lap he got passed. This left Grant with work to do on the corners. Going into the penultimate corner Grant passed for 14th position. He then got on the gas early out of the last corner but on the run to the line he got smacked in the side by another rider, forcing Grant to take avoiding action & run wide. This quite literally knocked Grant down to 15th position & only 1 point. This meant Grant maintained his 12th in the Championship standings.
A massive thank-you to all the support Grant and the team had over the weekend especially from Chip at Ashton Service Centre which is always much appreciated.
Grant would especially like to thank his Mum, Dad, Sister, Girlfriend Laura & mechanic ‘Sam’ for all their help over the weekend. Also to Mark, Andy, Steve, Steve & Sam’s parents that came to support the team on race day.
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