Stuart Easton as the sole representative in the Isilon MSS Discovery Kawasaki team had a busy day yesterday in preparation for round seven of the Bennetts British Superbike championship, which takes place at Knockhill today. With his team-mate in the Superbike class Michael Rutter out with a broken left wrist, Easton is once more riding both the Ninja ZX-10R and Ninja ZX-6R machines in the Superbike and Supersport classes. With the 23-year-old from Hawick knowing his home circuit of Knockhill well, he’s hoping for three good results from another very busy day today.
Stuart Easton, Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R and Ninja ZX-6R (16th in Superbike and 7th in Supersport)
“I would have liked a fair crack at a lap on a qualifying tyre in the dry, as I was 12th yesterday morning so I was confident that I had that sort of position at least in me. 16th isn’t really that representative of what we can do so I’m looking forward to today. Wet or dry I’m confident of a good finish and I’m shooting for anything between 10th and 12th. With the Supersport bike we’ve got a good set-up for the race – maybe the best we’ve ever had – so I’m confident of being inside the top three as we’ve really turned a corner with the bike.”
Jack Valentine, Race Team Manager
“We’ve been pretty pleased with Stuart on the Supersport bike, he’s been doing extremely well. We struggled a little with the qualifying tyre, which is why we ended up where we did, but we’ve got a good race set-up, so a good start should see us challenge for a podium. On the ZX-10R we’ve also got a good race set-up and things looked good in free practice yesterday morning as he was in 12th position, but in the afternoon he came straight in off the 600 and had to get used to the Superbike again before we put a qualifier in – everyone else was straight onto a Q tyre as the weather was threatening. That would have been a waste for us as Stuart needed to re-adjust to the bigger bike, but as we got the qualifier ready it started to rain and that was that. The grid position doesn’t reflect what we’re capable of, so another good start and he could challenge for the top 10.”
Nick Morgan, Team owner
“Overall I’m very pleased with Stuart’s performance yesterday. We’ve still got some areas to tidy-up – the Supersport bike doesn’t perform as we’d like on qualifying tyres – but the times he’s been doing are pretty good. With the Superbike it’s a shame he got caught out with the rain, but we couldn’t put him straight out on a qualifier after coming straight off the ZX-6R. This was just a bit of bad luck, but we’re very impressed with how he’s doing. Also Jack’s already beginning to make an impression on how the team works, which is just great.”
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