Mallory Park beckons this weekend for the HM Plant Honda squad. Both Cal Crutchlow and Leon Haslam have the daunting task of catching runaway Bennetts British Superbike leader Shane Byrne on his Airwaves Ducati. During a test session last week at Cadwell Park, both riders made small improvements to their HM Plant Honda CBR1000RR Fireblades and will be aiming to gain as many points as possible. With no Superstock race this weekend, Steve Brogan will be concentrating on his HM Plant CBR600RR, as he tries to claw back the points deficit to Fuchs-Silkolene British Supersport series leader Glen Richards.
Leon Haslam – HM Plant HondaBritish Superbike – Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade“In between Snetterton and Mallory we tested last week at Cadwell Park – HM Plant Honda’s local circuit. The weather was a bit tricky, but it’s always good to get more time on the new CBR1000RR Fireblades. As a result of trying a few things I’ve got more ‘feel’ from the front-end which will be handy around Mallory Park. We know we have to improve things to be consistently up at the front and that’s what we’re aiming to do. We just hope we can get good weather in practice and qualifying to refine the bikes still further.”
Cal Crutchlow – HM Plant HondaBritish Superbike – Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade“Every round of the Bennetts British Superbike championship is important, but we’re at the half-way point now, so we really want to get some points over the Ducatis. We both want to be up there fighting with Shakey and Leon Camier and I’ve got the added bonus of it effectively being my ‘home’ round, as Mallory isn’t too far from Coventry. The short lap makes for close racing and the fans love it as they can see pretty much the whole circuit from wherever they’re sitting. Let’s hope we can do well!”
Steve Brogan – HM Plant HondaBritish Supersport – Honda CBR600RR“I’m looking forward to Mallory Park. We’ll be concentrating solely on the HM Plant Honda CBR600RR, which means I’ll be looking to make some improvements and hoping to claw back some points to the leader of the series. At the Cadwell Park test, I tried some new forks, which felt much better so I will be using those at Mallory Park. We also made some mapping changes to the 600 and I played around with my position on the bike. All of these things should help us from first practice tomorrow.”
Havier Beltran – HM Plant Honda team manager “We’ve made some changes that we hope will benefit both riders in the Superbike class following our Cadwell Park test. The big thing for us will be the weather. If it’s dry then we can try the things we did at Cadwell and make more progress, but if we have dry and wet sessions it doesn’t help us as much. Steve’s got a nice easy weekend! Just the HM Plant CBR600RR to race so he can concentrate on that and hopefully make some ground up on the series leader Glen Richards.”
