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Craig Fitzpatrick had his best weekend of the season so far at Round 4 of the
2011 British Superbike Evo Championship at a wet and windy Thruxton. Fitzpatrick
and his Close Print Finance BLDS Honda negotiated the treacherous conditions to
score 8th and 7th place finishes.
Thruxton was the scene of Fitzpatrick's first Superbike Evo podium last season,
and he was hoping for another good result this time, having had a difficult
start to the campaign.
In Practice Fitzpatrick was unable to match the lap times he had achieved last
year. The Close Print Finance BLDS squad worked tirelessly to try and improve
the set up of the Honda CBR1000RR.
On Sunday Fitzpatrick managed to knock three quarters of a second of his best
practice time. He qualified 7th fastest of the Evo competitors.
As had happened at Croft, the rain began to fall just before the Superbike
riders took to the grid for the first of their two races. Having had no practice
in wet conditions, the riders were given 8 minutes of track time ahead of the
race.
The race finally began in damp conditions, with most of the field choosing the
full wet tyres and only a few gambling on intermediates. Fitzpatrick opted for
the full wets.
On the opening lap of race Fitzpatrick lost a few places, dropping back to 11th.
As the race developed, Fitzpatrick began to climb through the field. With the
rain beginning to fall harder, those on the intermediate tyres soon started to
struggle. Fitzpatrick passed some of the top factory riders as he got to grips
with the adverse conditions. By the chequered flag, Fitzpatrick had moved up to
8th.
The rain refused to ease between the two races, meaning conditions were even
worse for the race 2. Fitzpatrick struggled in the spray on the opening lap and
was back in 10th. Fitzpatrick's vision was impaired In the early stages, as his
visor misted up. Once he had managed to clear the visor, Fitzpatrick began to
lap considerably quicker and started to close the gap on those in front of him.
By lap 9, Fitzpatrick had caught the Kawasaki's of James Hillier and Josh Day.
He soon dispatched the pair and sought to close the 4 second gap to the next
group. Fitzpatrick crossed the line in 7th, equalling his best finish of the
year, and only 0.3 seconds behind 6th.
"The conditions were pretty difficult out there," stated Fitzpatrick after the
race. "The track conditions were actually fine; there was plenty of grip. It was
just the spray. On the first lap it was awful, I couldn't see anything. "
"I had problems with my visor steaming up and I was really struggling. I managed
to get it sorted after a couple of laps, but I had lost a load of time."
"My lap times after that were good. I caught some of those in front of me and if
I had had another lap then I think i would have had 6th. My laps times were good
enough to put me 4th."
"It definitely wasn't easy out there, but I want to thank the team because the
rain makes more work for them too. We have got a great bunch of people here and
they work really hard to get me out there."
"This is the first weekend where I have scored points in both races, so we are
happier with that. Let's look forward to Knockhill and continue to move in the
right direction." |
