It was a great Saturday for the JG Speedfit Kawasaki team as their rider, James Ellison, broke the lap-record at Brands Hatch to take pole position.
Ellison’s lap-time of 45.310 broke Gregorio Lavilla’s eight-year record around the 1.2mile Indy circuit and was also 0.257s quicker than second-placed man, Jakub Smrz.
Afterwards, Ellison said: “I honestly wasn’t expecting to take pole position, but every time I went out on the bike, I just felt really comfortable. We’ve not really found anything big this weekend, we’ve just really gelled with the Kawasaki from testing and we’ve significantly improved the bike from last time we were here.
“We’ve been running really consistent times and we know we can run at least 10 laps at this pace. We’ve not really had a chance to do many full race runs but the team have worked fantastically all weekend and I’m confident we’ll be able to challenge for the win tomorrow!”
Team manager, Mike Kane, was delighted with his rider’s performance and is hopeful of some more success tomorrow.
He said: “It’s been a brilliant day for the JG Speedfit Kawasaki team. We’ve shown our pace in every session and qualifying saw James do what he do best, taking pole position and doing so by setting three laps under the existing lap record. Hopefully we can continue like this tomorrow and secure another win, or two!”
On the other side of the garage, James Westmoreland struggled to find a comfortable setting as he continues to adapt to the Kawasaki ZX-10R.
Westmoreland was knocked-out of qualifying at the end of Q2, with a lap-time of 46.200 putting him 17th on the grid.
He said: “Obviously this isn’t where the bike or I should be, James has proven the bike is capable of being incredibly fast and I know I can run with the front guys. I don’t feel 100% comfortable on the bike at the moment and unfortunately the Indy circuit here at Brands exaggerates everything quite a bit, so where you could get away with it at another track, we’re struggling a little here.
“The guys in the garage are already planning on some changes and looking at improvement we can try in warm up tomorrow which will hopefully let us challenger further at the front.”
