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Simon Crafar and team mate Steve Plater struggled at Oulton Park, Cheshire to get their all-new Yamaha R1s dialled into the demands of the track for the Bank Holiday Superbike meeting. Both riders and team worked through literally hundreds of suspension and engine settings to try to find a way to get the huge power output to the circuit in a manageable way.
Simon managed to qualify down the order in 14th place, he said: ‘I have never gone so slow at a track and felt so much like I was going to crash! That’s not a criticism of the bike, more about the track.`
‘I rode here 10 years ago but it hasn’t helped me at all. I had to re-learn the circuit all over again and Oulton is the type of track that is totally committed for both the rider and the bike. We have been looking for a certain type of set-up and it hasn’t happened for us. I am very disappointed with my time because everyone has been working so hard. I wanted to qualify better for them as much as for myself.
‘Oulton isn’t a simple track, it’s totally full-on and you can see the riders who know it very well. The plan for tomorrow is to put the bike back to the settings we ran at Donington where we scored two podium finishes.
‘It’s a foundation setting that I know I can get on with. We’ll work on the bike and everything else from there.’
