Glenn Irwin is looking to build on the experiences of Thruxton and Cadwell Park as the Bennetts British Superbike Championship returns to Donington Park this weekend.
Irwin has been getting to grips with the Yamaha R1 since making the move to the Nitrous Competitions Racing Yamaha team on his return from injury, scoring a best result of a top ten finish last time out at Cadwell Park.
Irwin said: “Cadwell was a funny one really. We had the test and the chance to get more comfortable with the Yamaha and I think pre-event and pre-season testing are two very different things. You know when you join a team at the beginning of the year and you go testing, you get your bar positions and you get all your ergonomics as such correct on the bike - your foot rests etc.
“We made a breakthrough on Monday and the pace we had in warm up was very good and it came through moving bar resistance and changing the angle of the handlebars and using different bars completely. It was much more familiar with me and my bike was more like how my other bikes have felt in recent years. Grid positions at Cadwell are so important and although we had a breakthrough, that breakthrough during warm up obviously doesn’t alter your grid position.
“Race 3 was pleasing, we finished just behind Brad (Ray) and Danny (Kent), two riders who have spent large parts of their career on Yamahas, both have been winning races this year, and I guess haven’t had to recover from an injury like we’ve had to do recently, so there were lots of positives. We go into Donington and I’ve had great form there, I think we’ve seen how special the pace was at the first Donington this year.
“The Yamaha is also in great form, and I think now we know it’s about letting go of everything that went on. The injury now has to become a thing of the past, to not bring that in to the mindset and not to have it as a restriction and it’s becoming more and more normal all the time now. So let’s fully focus on starting to bring results to the Nitrous Competitions Yamaha team that they greatly deserve.”