By Phil Wain
April 17 2005

John McGuinness and his AIM Racing Yamaha team made their way to Thruxton in Hampshire for round two of the British Superbike Championship, and it turned out to be a very disappointing weekend for the Morecambe rider.

Despite a strong qualifying performance, John was unable to convert this into points, largely due to a severe lack of grip, and could only finish 19th and 20th in the two races.

Sunday’s qualifying sessions were held in cold, windy conditions, which caused havoc for many riders, including John, and he found himself in 15th position after the morning session. However, whilst a number of the riders failed to improve in the afternoon, McGuinness was able to shave almost a second off his time to move up to 11th overall. It could have been quicker still only for traffic to hold him up on at least one flying lap although he was content to have closed to within one second of the pole setter Michael Rutter.

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The wind had died down considerably on race day and the sun was shining prominently when the first race got underway. John made a good start but almost immediately the tyres weren’t giving him the grip required and it was all he could do to hang on. He continued to slip further down the field, battling until the end, but 19th was not what was expected at the beginning of the day. It was a similar story in race two, another great start seeing him inside the top ten before the same problem resurfaced and he dropped back, eventually finishing in a subdued 20th place.

Speaking at the conclusion of the meeting John commented, “After qualifying well, I was hopeful of grabbing some good points from the two races but nothing went right for me on Sunday and I’m very disappointed. I had no grip at all in the first race and when I came in at the end of the race, it was totally shredded and there were some big chunks of rubber missing. We don’t really know why that happened and it played on my mind for the second race. I didn’t feel confident with the bike and it showed with my riding. I couldn’t get into my rhythm at all and I just wasn’t flowing, I’m at quite a loss to explain it.”

“The bike was more than capable for a fast lap in qualifying but I need to spend a little more time working on the race set-up and I blame myself in that respect. This is the best domestic championship on the planet and I need to build my confidence back up as I know I can run in the top ten when everything is right. We’re quite a small team and now we’ve got the spare bike, hopefully we can make further improvements and find a bit more power. Fitting the gas forks to the R1 Yamaha will help a great deal and we should have them in place for the next round so it’s just a question of getting our heads down, digging deep and putting in plenty of hard work. I’m going to go to Oulton and get plenty of laps in there to try and ensure we’re back in the ball park at Mallory.”

John and team head to Oulton Park on Friday for the official BSB test day where they plan to work hard on improving the machine, before making their way to Mallory Park for round three of the British Superbike Championship, which takes place on April 24th.

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