Byrne Keeping Calm Despite Poor Pace on Friday

Shane 'Shakey' Byrne isn't concerned about the weekend ahead despite finishing Friday practice at Croft down in ninth position.

The HM Plant Honda man enters the weekend with an eleven point lead over MSS Kawasaki's Stuart Easton, who was fourth quickest.

Byrne had a relatively straightforward day, and stressed that his tyre choice prevented him from showing the true pace of the Fireblade machine

“It's Friday 13^th and I have to say I am very happy to get through today incident-free! It hasn't been a bad day for us and we have good speed with the HM Plant Honda Fireblade but we still need to make some refinements tomorrow before qualifying”.

“We have some settings that we tested at Darley Moor that have worked well and also some problems we were expecting that have appeared. We have used old tyres in the afternoon session and my 19th of 23 laps was the fastest and we are not that far off so it is definitely not a disaster. I obviously don't want to be ninth, but I am not worried.”

Teammate Ryuichi Kiyonari is 12 points behind his teammate with four races gone, but he also found himself down the order on Friday.

The reigning BSB champion was all the way down in 15^th and admits he is still struggling to find the ideal set-up around the North Yorkshire circuit.

“At every round we have been pushing and testing to develop our Fireblade, but we still need to find a good setting here. The track is so different to Brands Hatch and Oulton Park and what we have tried just hasn't worked here yet. We have been pushing hard and it is frustrating to be fifteenth fastest today, but we like a challenge so we need to keep trying tomorrow so we are ready for the race.”

Team manager Havier Beltran is expecting a busy night as the team look for the desired changes to give them the best possible chance in qualifying.

“Kiyo and Shakey have been making good headway, but are still a long way off from where we want to be. We are hoping for a dry session tomorrow and we will work hard as a team to make changes to put us in the best possible position for qualifying.”