At the end of free practice and qualifying for the final round of the British superbike season at Brands Hatch STP Motorsport MV Agusta’s Chris Burns is wondering how many mirrors he must have broken or ladders he has walked under. The team’s run of bad luck continued throughout Friday and Saturday with a total of nine mechanical problems preventing the MV Agusta F4 1000 from completing a single session on track.
Key among the problems was the breakdown of the kit generator and new kit gearbox which between them lost time in two of the three free practice sessions. In qualifying, the session was cut short by an oil leak, causing the MV Agusta to be black flagged. The team is hopeful that the problems can be overcome before tomorrow’s races.
Paul Snell – Crew Chief:
“We always knew that this season was going to present us with frustrations as we develop the MV Agusta F4. However, we seem to have more than our fair share of problems, many of which are not of our making. As always we will do our utmost to put the bike on the grid and give Chris every opportunity to finish the season with two more podiums.”
Chris Burns – Rider:
“I really can’t believe our [bad] luck so far this weekend. It seems to have been a case of one step forward and two back and, for the majority of the problems to be caused by parts that should really have made things better is even more frustrating. As they say, tomorrow is another day and we will be pulling out all of the stops to maintain our podium record, and finish the season on a high.
