GBmoto Kawasaki’s James Ellison made sweeping changes to his engine braking strategy overnight at the opening Brands Hatch British Superbike round which moved him from 13th to sixth with a six-tenth laptime improvement.

The Kendal man had a technical issue in this morning’s first session which mean he only got in a few laps but his squad were able to instigate the raft of modifications they had worked on overnight which gave Ellison a boost ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying.

“We lost a lot of time this morning when the gear position sensor split an o-ring which gave us an oil leak but we got that fixed and managed a couple of laps right at the end,” said Ellison, speaking to bikesportnews.com at Brands this evening.

“We made a lot of changes from yesterday as we struggled. The chassis is great but the main thing we looked at was the engine-braking strategy and throttle connection and we made massive changes last night after looking at all the data.

“I ride really smoothly and the throttle connection felt like an on/off switch. The setup we had was close to how Chris was running but we ride very differently. Using what Chris has worked up to a certain point but when we’re pushing for that last little of bit of time, I couldn’t ride how I normally do.

“It was frustrating as I couldn’t predict what the bike was going to do. Yesterday, when I hit the brakes, I had too much fuel going into the engine when braking, which was running me on into the corner but then when were in the corner, it would hold back because it had taken all the fuel out, and when the fuel came back, it was like pressing a button so it was inconsistent and I couldn’t get a lap together.

“What we did today was get more initial engine braking, then as we release the brake, it thrown a load more fuel in, runs through the corner like a two-stroke and when the throttle picks up, there is already fuel in there so it’s a smooth transition and that was the big change we needed.”