Arriving at Oulton Park I was looking on improving upon my result at Mallory and having a good points scoring weekend.
FP1 started wet and I initially did a outlap before returning to my garage to sort a problem with my quickshifter. I completed one flying lap which put me fastest and came in as the track was drying a lot and i wanted to save my wet tyres. With around 15 minutes remaining I went out with a dry set up and went 8th. I was not over the moon with how it had gone but it had got the weekend underway!
FP2 was again wet but quickly drying up. I went out onto the circuit with around 20 minutes remaining and steadily built into a nice rhythm. It became apparent we were struggling for a good dry set up and I was loosing a lot of time on corner entry. I ended up 10th which was pretty dissapointing but confident for the remainder of the weekend.
Q1 was really wet and straight away I felt very confident. I never used to be much of a wet rider but now I love the conditions which is funny! I was in or around the top 6 all session and then went 3rd with 6 minutes remaining before pitting to make a slight change to the bike. It was drying slightly and everyone else made there last laps count and I dropped down to 14th. I was really annoyed as that was not a true indication to how fast I was in the session.
Q2 was dry and I knew I had to find something special. The dry set up was a lot better than friday and I was very confident of a front row grid position. I was consistantly doing mid to low 40’s and on my last lap i managed a 39.9 despite a few mistakes and traffic. I went 4th but got shuffled back to 5th after the flag went out. I was happy with my time but slightly annoyed at the mistakes I made and the position.
Warm up was damp and i again enjoyed riding in those conditions and ended up 2nd.
I knew I had to get a good start and get away with the front few guys. I made a decent start and settled in 6th but straight away I was been dropped and then made a mistake into Hizzys on lap 1. I run the inside curb and folded the front but saved it on my knee and it unsettled my rhythm and I dropped to 8th. I settled down and was lapping in the mid 40’s fighting for 5th when Plater retired. I managed to get the better of Paul Young and I tried to pass James Webb on the final lap but I came up short and finished 6th. I was pretty upset after the race because I didnt have the feeling in the first few laps which let the leaders get away. I was expecting my race pace to be about half a second faster and I certainly wasnt expecting the leaders to go as fast as they did. I had not gone into the race expecting to be 20 seconds down at the finish line. I have taken the positives away from the weekend though, like im still 5th in the championship and very much in the fight for 4th. Also I had qualified a second faster than back in May and gone a second faster in the race too which is a massive chunk of time and serious progress in just 5 rounds. Another second next year and we will be on top of the box!!! Oulton has always been one of my Bogey tracks for the past 3 years and I guess we just didn’t put it all together in the race for one reason or another.
We now have a test coming up at Cadwell later this week, Im going to Knuckle down to some training and get in good shape for Knockhill were I have some great memories with a podium in 2005 and race win and lap record in 2006. I will be aiming to be back on the box in 3 weeks time.
Finally a big thank you to all the team, sponsors and my mechanics, my dad and Sim.
