BSB: Lack of feel plaguing pole man Byrne in dry

Shane Byrne took his first pole position of the 2016 MCE British Superbike season at a sodden Knockhill this afternoon, beating Honda’s Jason O’Halloran to the top spot in qualifying by just 0.001 seconds.

However, the four-time champion isn’t too confident in the dry as he continues to struggle in certain areas of the 1.3 mile Knockhill track. Despite setting the second fastest time in yesterday’s practice sessions, Byrne is suffering with a lack of feeling in two particular corners, preventing him from pushing as hard as he’d like.

“If I’m honest, there are two corners on the track that I’m particularly struggling with in the dry,” he told MCN. “Not because I have a problem but because I don’t have any feeling. I feel both me and the bike should be able to go through them much faster but it’s just down to not knowing what’s going to happen if I push.”

Despite the ongoing concern, the Be Wiser Ducati man is confident his team will be able to fix the issue if it’s dry for tomorrow’s warm-up.

“I think we’ll be fine tomorrow. The difficult thing for me is that I’m quite an experienced rider and I’ve had lots of problems in my career and usually you can find a way around them but with this track wet one minute and dry the next you’re wanting to try things but you can’t really test. The boys know what they need to do if it’s dry tomorrow but either way we have a good rhythm, Sunday is race day and that’s what we live for.”