PBM Aprilia's James Ellison is hoping the combination of a new kicker clutch system and the softer compound Bridgestone front tyre that is being debuted this weekend at the Jerez MotoGP round will make faster and more consistent laptimes easier to come by.

The kicker setup allows Ellison to change down gears without using the clutch by blipping the throttle to the right rpm for a slick shift so the Kendal man will be able to use all the strength in his arms for braking into the tight Jerez hairpin while the bike downchanges with just input from his left foot.

"I've been asking for this for a while but now we are at Jerez with the tight final left-hander, it will allow me to brake as hard as I can without having to move force off the right hand to balance the bars to use the clutch," said Ellison, speaking to bikesportnews.com from the track this lunchtime.

"I had been just letting off the brake fractionally, according to the data, which is enough to upset the hard front but now we have the softer one, it will be easier to load the front and keep the contact patch deformed enough to maintain grip, which is where we struggled at Qatar. Trouble is, we only have two of them, so we will have to sort out a strategy of when to use them."

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