Hickman building up pace at Macau

Fastest ever Isle of Man TT newcomer Peter Hickman says that his 2015 Macau Grand Prix has been all about building up his pace gradually so far, as the Lincolnshire rider has worked his way up the time sheets to end final qualifying with a front row grid position in third.

Still getting to grips with the Guia circuit after losing most of his debut year when a water leak caused him to crash in first qualifying in 2014, the Briggs Equipment BMW rider nonetheless seems to have made the approach work for him after finishing less than a second off fellow BMW rider Michael Rutter.

“I only managed two sessions last year, and missed half the meeting so this year was starting from scratch again for us. But the bike’s been behaving really well, and I’ve been learning a little more each lap and just slowly building up to a good pace.

“We made some small changes last night, and it was a lot better straight off. I went out with a hard tyre for qualifying, because we don’t have any qualifiers with us, only race tyres, and I was able to go faster right away – which was a good sign that we’d be ok on a softer race tyre. To go three second a faster than yesterday was a bit of a surprise though!”