It's been ages since my last column that's for sure and I seem to be a bit rusty getting back into it. I have been pretty busy so will fill you in on what we've been up to.....
I guess with the end of the Petronas era it has been a bit strange leaving and going back to DFX, a team which I rode for when I first came to WSBK in 2001 with Pirelli.
I first rode the Honda for an hour on the Monday after the last race of last season at Magny Cours, with Frankie Chilli's settings, and I can now understand how completely different his riding style is to mine and I just wasn't confident in the handling at all. Since that first test I have been able to become more confident in the bike but we seem to have changed everything completely upside down and inside out compared to Frankie's settings.
After riding the Petronas for the last two years I have certainly had to work hard adapting to and setting up the Honda to suit my riding style. One of the biggest bonuses that I have for the 2007 season is my crew chief. If Barry Stanley (who was my crew chief for the last two seasons at Foggy Petronas Racing) hadn't have come with me to DFX I think I would be in a locked hospital ward somewhere by now! He understands exactly how I ride and what I need to go quicker so I have been quite lucky having him with me as we work so well as a team. While I'm talking about old team members lending a hand I am also lucky to have Fiona Cole lending a hand with PR around her other work commitments (in her spare time!?). So with those two, plus an Italian mechanic that I worked with back in 2004, it has certainly made a good base team that I was comfortable and confident with straight away.
Looking back on the Petronas project, I certainly don't regret my time there as I learnt a lot that I am now able to apply to the Honda. I didn't totally appreciate how well the Petronas handled until I got on the Honda for the first time though. The Honda felt just like going back two years to when I first rode the Petronas at Valencia. That was probably one of the hardest days as I felt that I had to start from scratch again with the Honda - instead of being able to just get on and ride a bike that had already been ‘sorted'.
It's always a case of ‘if only' but if we had had better reliability and 100cc more with the Petronas I know we could have won races. The biggest asset to the Petronas project was the race team, as everybody knew exactly what they were doing and if I asked for something to be done to the bike they understood what I wanted and got it done - we did everything possible with the material we had.........
After the first test Sandra and I had our first international flight as parents. Axel was born on 25 October 2006, so was only one month old when we went back to Australia, and I was worried! 30 hours flying in and around airports isn't the ideal initiation for your new born and when we got to our seats we could see that people were cringing with the thought of a crying baby for 30 hours. We did consider taking a big box of ear plugs on board to distribute to everyone but I'm happy to say though that Axel was perfect all the way back to Australia!
We've had a great summer (England's winter) down in Australia - barbecuing, trials riding and doing lots of cycling. Sandra was a bridesmaid at her sister's wedding and we had relatives from the UK over for a month, as well as a good mate of mine visiting from Switzerland, but in a way we are looking forward to heading back to Europe for a rest from all the chaos, but we did enjoy it.
When I went back for my second test on the CBR1000 at Valencia, the track was cold and we had no tyres to use, but I was encouraged with the improvements we made and it was a valuable test for me. I went a second faster on a worse track while others went slower than the previous test. After the test I headed back to Australia a lot more confident with the bike and although it still needed work, we fortunately had another test at Valencia before the start of the season.
Looking back on our winter testing programme, and with the first two races now been and gone, it is easy to see the disadvantage of doing all your winter testing at the same track, especially when you are trying to learn a bike for the first time. But in small teams money is always a problem and you have to make do with what you can.
I was worried going in to Qatar as I still hadn't found a set up I was happy with and the Qatar meeting turned out to be a bit of a struggle for us, with me having trouble getting the bike to turn. When I leant over the bike just kept going straight and I wore through two pairs of boots to my toes! The races went ok but in race two by the end of the race my tyres were completely destroyed - at first I didn't understand why but then we had a look the numbers on the tyres and as it turned out, I got a tyre from a different batch to what I had been running and it wouldn't do the same pace as the others I had been using!
I was happy to be away from Qatar and back to Phillip Island as it is a track I know well. On my first outing for free practice I knew that we had a lot of work to do to make the bike turn so we got working on it and in the end I ended up being the second fastest Honda rider of the weekend. Not too bad really considering I have the least experience and riding time on the Honda.
Qualifying was a bit disappointing as in the free practice before Superpole I was actually fourth on the time sheets until everyone started to put their qualifiers in. I came in and put mine in only to find that with the qualifier on the rear chattered. For Superpole I would have actually used the race tyre (as I had just been lapping quicker with it) but we didn't have one so I had to use the qualifier - the lap felt terrible, like I should have been last on the grid but somehow I managed 11th!
Race one at Phillip Island was great I was doing good lap times and going forward. I got up to eighth briefly but after not being able to pass people for the last two years I got a bit carried away and run off the track at Honda corner whilst trying to pass Nieto, so ended up in tenth. And in race two I got a great start but burnt the clutch on the line so made only one lap.
Although my results have been average so far this season I'm happy now because we have found the right direction with the set up of the bike and my confidence is returning. I know there is more to come out of the bike which I am hoping we will have sorted even more for the SBK test at Valencia before we head off to Donington for the first European round, so that we can make that next step for the third round of the championship at a track where I'm sure we should go well.
The last bit of exciting news this month is that after all my years of racing I finally have my own personal website, so a big thanks to the guys at Data Pacific, 155 Design and Fi for setting this up and getting it running for me.
Ciao Steve
