Map Embassy’s riders found it tough going during the qualifying sessions at a wet and wild Thruxton on Saturday.
With rain lashing the track all day it made for some difficult riding at what is normally one of the fastest tracks of the series.
In the first qualifying session of the British Supersport championship Aussies Glen Richards and Paul Young both struggled. Young coming in at 26th with a time of 1:26.063 and Richards managing to climb up to 7th with a lap time of 1:24.025, whilst AJ Venter could also only manage 26th in his first qualifying session of the Superstock 600 series.
In the afternoon with the weather showing little improvement all three riders agreed that they would struggle to better their times. However, in the second Supersport qualifying session both riders were using a combination of wets and intermediate tyres. With four red flags appearing during the session, it offered the team several chances to change the settings of the bikes. After the third red flag the riders came in to the pit lane when there was a brief period of about five minutes in which the rain completely stopped. Richards saw this as his window of opportunity and opted to go for a dry set of tyres and managed to get the fastest lap in qualifying to clinch pole position with a lap time of 1:21.428. Paul Young left it late to radically improve his position on the grid for tomorrow by getting his best time of the session on a lap that was ended by the final red flag, climbing thirteen places from his first session to take 12th position.
- Glen Richards – MAP Embassy Racing - 1:21.428
- Steve Brogan – HM Plant Honda – 1:21.768
- Aaron Walker – TJW Racing – 1:21.912
AJ Venter had less luck with the conditions as the rain got heavier late in the afternoon. In a dramatic second qualifying session where at one point the South African didn’t even look to be qualifying, with eight minutes remaining AJ upped the ante and climbed as high as 15th before slipping back down to 26th.
“That is not where I wanted to be on the grid, not by a long way.There was a bit of confusion with what position I thought I was in and where I actually was so I was going steady. The team managed to get a message to me and it was a bit mental for the last ten minutes or so.”
It was a tough session for the young rider and he will now be hoping to put in a better performance on Sunday.
Although the forecast for Sunday predicts heavy shows at Thruxton the team remains positive of making a good start to the Championship.
