Honda Racing’s Jason O’Halloran was on course for a front row start, as he was inside the top three times during both MCE British Superbike Q1 and Q2 sessions at Brands Hatch, but while he was on a hot lap he crashed unhurt at Stirlings in Superpole.
The Australian labelled his fall as bringing a ‘bittier end to a good day’ as he was in contention for a possible pole position. He was also the first rider to crash during the new Superpole format, and felt he could have gone even faster than the 1’25.052 that he set in Q2.
In the end O’Halloran found himself ninth overall, and his Fireblade will line up on the third row for the first race tomorrow. But when he did go out in the final qualifying session he felt that he had less rear grip than in the previous outing.
“To be honest it is a bitter end to a good day. We had a good FP3 this morning and felt good and had good pace and both Q1 and Q2 went pretty smooth and made it through pretty easy and stopped before the end of both sessions, and did a couple of 5’3’s in Q2. I was quite confident we could go faster,” said O’Halloran, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the track.
“When I went out in Q3 I just didn’t have the rear grip that I had in Q2, I don’t know what it was, but I didn’t have that feeling and I was having to push really hard to make that lap time come. I know from my dash that I was on a good lap and still up on my best lap of the weekend at the point where I went down.
“I actually went in there a bit slower than my best lap on the data. I was about to pick up the throttle and the rear let go and it was one of those and it was bound to happen to someone in Superpole and I was the first numpty that done it.”
