Smiths BMW’s Lee Jackson made significant gains during the second MCE British Superbike free practice outing at Thruxton and went over one second faster from this morning, to the final session today.
The youngster made it inside the top six quickest times after a solid, 1’15.553 and was 0.4s off JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Luke Mossey on the timing-screens. Jackson admitted that it has not been the strongest of seasons so far in BSB, but his team have been working hard on improving the S1000RR so that the rider can feel more comfortable onboard the machine.
Overnight his Smiths Racing crew will make the rear spring stiffer, as they have made the BMW longer and the improvements certainly seemed evident today. The team have also adapted the head angle and the changes have benefitted Jackson so far this race weekend.
In FP1 the Northern lad set a 1’16.721 that put him 15th, but the 1.2 second gain showed that the bike is working well, around a circuit that he really enjoys. In the final session on Friday Jackson started with the used SC1 rear tyre and then also went out on a new SC1 and a fresh zero at the end. All three different tyres were on the pace.
“This has always been a good track for me and coming into this weekend I wanted to do a good job even though we haven’t had the greatest season. I wanted to come here
and do a good job. Between FP1 and FP2 we made quite a lot of changes,” said Jackson, speaking to bikesportnews.com.
“The bike wasn’t quite how i thought it was. We changed quite a lot, we have made the bike a lot longer and changed the head angle as well. From FP1 to FP2 we have gained a lot of time.
“A stiffer rear spring, that is what we will change overnight, we have a good few ideas and I have looked at the data to see where we can go faster. We started from the SC1 from this morning and then went on a new SC1 tyre and at the end we tried a zero and we had a good go at both options.”
