Temperature Troubles For Fitzpatrick
Craig Fitzpatrick was once again left cursing persistent technical problems as
he was only able to record one 7th place finish at Round 8 of the British
Superbike Evo Championship at Brands Hatch. With his Close Print Finance Honda
Fireblade overheating, Fitzpatrick was forced to retire from both of Sunday's
races.
The weekend began well enough as Fitzpatrick posted the third best times in both
of Friday's free practice sessions.
A hectic Saturday schedule began with a damp third and final free practice
session. As overnight rain lay on the circuit and sporadic drizzle hung in the
air, the track conditions were far from ideal. With qualifying and the opening
race later in the day, most of the riders exercised caution when venturing out
of the garages. As a result the lap times were erratic. Fitzpatrick again
recorded the third fastest time of the Evo entrants, and also ended up 8th
fastest overall.
During qualifying Fitzpatrick could only
manage the 5th fastest Evo time leaving him 26th overall on the grid for
Saturday's race, the first of three.
Race 1 began under some ominously dark cloud. Fitzpatrick made a good start and
began to progress through the field but it wasn't long before the rains came and
the race had to be stopped.
By the time the race was restarted the rain was torrential and the sheer volume
of spray meant visibility on the opening few laps was minimal. Fitzpatrick was
clearly struggling for grip with his wet set-up and was unable to make any
headway over the shortened 10 lap race. Fitzpatrick took the chequered flag in
7th place.
The cooler ambient conditions combined with the slower lap times of Race 1 had
masked an underlying overheating problem on the Close Print Finance Honda. The
problem had been there since the previous round but the team had been unable to
diagnose the root cause of the issue. With the more sustained pace in races the
issue was more significant than it had been in any of the practice sessions.
Prior to the stoppage in the opening race, Fitzpatrick had begun to notice the
elevated engine temperature.
Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of Fitzpatrick and the team throughout
the weekend, they were unable to resolve the issue. During both Race 2 and Race
3, Fitzpatrick was forced to retire as the engine temperature rose to damaging
levels.
Fitzpatrick commented: "It's been a disappointing weekend for us, things just
don't seem to be going for us this season. The bike has been overheating all
weekend. In practice I was struggling to do enough back-to-back laps to get the
bike set up properly and that hurt our pace."
"When it comes to a 20 lap race though the bike just can't cope with the
prolonged running. I had to pull in to prevent damaging the engine when it is
running that hot. We have tried everything we can think of to sort the issue but
nothing seems to help. I want to thank all of the team who have worked really
hard but unfortunately we have been unable to get the results we are capable of.
Hopefully we can find a solution to the problem before the next round at Cadwell
Park."
Fitzpatick still lies 9th in the Evo standings as the series move back to Cadwell
Park on August Bank Holiday weekend.
Sam Farrington
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