Buildbase BMW’s Ryuichi Kiyonari came away from the MCE British Superbike weekend ‘disappointed’ after missing out on two podiums, especially after begining the weekend so strongly and starting race one from pole position. But his good form was not to last and lost the pace to challenge for the front in race one, and ended up crashing out at Goddards in race two.
Kiyo was fortunately uninjured after his high-side, and felt that his impatience was to blame for the incident. In the opening race of the season Kiyo experienced an extreme lack of pace and was over two seconds slower than his times set in the free practice and qualifying sessions.
“I am fine after the crash. I had a good start to the weekend, and on pole but in race one the tyre felt that there was a big change at the back and that was the same in race two, but we made a bit of a change to the machine set up that’s why it is not so bad – that’s why I am disappointed for race one and race two,” said Kiyonari, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the track.
“I am not sure why I crashed – it could have something to do with the riding style and it felt that I had to change that when I was trying to get into the top four, and In was trying to change my usual riding line to pass Easton then Shakey and Dan. I wanted to hurry past them and I could not wait and thought ‘I have to pass them now’ then I crashed.”
Kiyo and his team are still perplexed as to why he lost his race pace in the first session this afternoon, but the triple-champ knew that something felt wrong with his rear SC1 tyre. Some have suggested that the change in temperature could have something to do with the issues, but Kiyonari dismissed those claims, as he has ridden in hotter temperatures while competing in Asia, and never experienced any problems with tyres there.
Kiyonari added: “Some people are saying the temperature is what made it different from yesterday – but I don’t think it is that. In the Asian championship it is 50 or 60 degrees on the ground but today was warmer than yesterday - but only a little bit not much.”
