Saturday and Sunday provided a huge contrast in fortunes for Kyle and the Schmidt racing team at Jerez de la Frontera.
In Saturday’s timed practice, Kyle confirmed the solid progress that he and his team have made in developing the Kawasaki, again the times were quick and the outright top speed of the bike was right up there when compared to the other top riders.
On Saturday morning, in sunny but cool conditions, Kyle was out on track for the third and final practice, setting a time of 1’46”050 to conclude in fourteenth place.
In Superpole1 Kyle put in a great performance, running in 7th place in the early going before moving up to second with around half a minute of the session remaining. Unfortunately Cluzel and Khairuddin leapfrogged Kyle with just seconds of the session remaining, pushing him out of contention for SP2 and down to 4th place.
With a best lap of 1’44”508, Kyle was just two tenths of a second off the time needed to qualify for Supeprole2.
Kyle Ryde:
“We’ve done quite well. Today we made a big change for SP1 and the bike was a lot better but very different to how it was during the earlier sessions, I didn’t have enough time to fully understand it. If I’d had time to do more laps, I could have improved by half a second I think.
I was disappointed not to reach SP2, but I think we were only 0.2 off. I’m not sure about our pace to be honest because we’ve tried so many things, but I do have a definite front tyre picked out for Sunday and I’m confident with that choice. I think we can be in the top ten.”
Technical problem halts Schmidt Racings progress
Sunny conditions and summer temperatures greeted the riders at Jerez de la Frontera in Spain for the eleventh and penultimate round of the Supersport World Championship.
In yesterday’s Superpole 1, Kyle put in a great performance, confirming the significant improvements made to his Kawasaki ZX-6R. Unfortunately though, with just 4 minutes of the warm up remaining Kyle was forced to retire due to an engine problem.
As soon as the bike returned to the pits, the Schmidt Racing Team technicians tried to repair it in the limited time available, but despite their best efforts the bike was not ready for the start of the race, meaning that Kyle could not take part.
A real pity as, considering the results achieved during practice, Kyle could have delivered the result we all know he is capable of at this level.
Kyle Ryde:
“Since starting to use this bike we haven’t had any technical problems and it’s a shame that it had to happen today, preventing us from taking part in a race that would surely have been a positive one for us.
We tried everything to repair the bike in time, but it wasn’t to be. The time between the warm-up and the race is too short. We’ll try to make up for this next time in Qatar. I want to thank the team as they have really worked hard here at Jerez”