Relentless Suzuki by TAS Racing were left to rue an incident packed day at Brands Hatch which left them with work to do on Monday.
In qualifying for the first British Superbike race of the new season, Josh Brookes was eliminated in Q2 and will start 13th, while Guy Martin will line up in 27th after going out in the first session.
The Australian was frustrated after missing out on the top ten but refused to be downhearted, and is already focused on moving forward tomorrow.
“I’m disappointed with qualifying but I don’t want to make excuses”, he said. “In my opinion we’re not just quite there yet and qualifying wasn’t a good showing. We made a few changes and I’ve a fair idea what the problem was, but as I say, I’m not going to make any excuses. I’m trying to stay upbeat as being annoyed is not going to help the situation. We will make a few changes for morning warm-up and see where we can improve.”
Team Manager Philip Neill is still hopeful the team can achieve a positive result and believes the GSX-R1000 machine will perform better in race trim.
“Today was a big disappointment, there’s no hiding that. We’re taking the positives as we’ve spent most of the weekend on the back foot after Josh had a small crash and an electronic problem also cost us a whole session. It’s been a baptism of fire but we’ve been here before at Brands so no one is panicking. We have the pace on a race tyre and while it’s not an ideal grid position, if Josh can find a bit of consistency through the whole lap, we can come away with something from the weekend.”
Alastair Seeley was carrying Relentless Suzuki's hopes in the opening race of the 2011 British Supersport Championship, but the Northern Irishman crashed out while challenging for the lead.
But fortunately, Seeley's fastest race lap was enough to place him third on the grid for Monday's second race, and is confident of putting today's slip up behind him.
“I was catching Ben Wilson when I lost the front, so it’s good to be getting two bites at the cherry this weekend. The new GSX-R600 really felt great up to that point; it’s just a matter of sussing out what tyres to be using for tomorrow in this heat. I suppose it’s all down to rider preference. I’m okay and the bike’s not too bad after the crash, so we’ll reload for tomorrow and go chasing a podium.”
