The opening day at Thruxton saw a boost in confidence for Bennetts Suzuki’s Ryuichi Kiyonari, who rounded out the second session sixth fastest after a re-assuring step forward with the GSX-R1000.
The three-time British Champion has struggled so far this year and when a glimmer of pace began to show he fell and broke his collarbone at Brands Hatch. However, a strong start to proceedings at the super-fast Hampshire track has left him feeling confident ahead of Sunday’s two races.
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Despite placing sixth fastest in the session, he’s much more confident in the Bennetts Suzuki’s race pace ahead of Sunday’s two 20-lap outings.
“That was better than the last few rounds,” he told MCN after the session. “This morning I was 27th but everybody else used a new tyre where I didn’t so I couldn’t improve my time, but in the second session we made a big improvement.
“My confidence is much better; the bike feels a lot better too. We’ve been working quite a lot on machine balance which is very important to me. To be honest, over just one lap I’m not amazingly fast but I am very consistent over more laps.
“I’m much more confident for the races than I am for qualifying as our pace is so consistent, but we’ll work to improve the single lap tomorrow morning.”
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