KAWASAKI RACING:

Broc Parkes joined the top 20 riders in the Superpole contest at Magny-Cours, and finished 19th overall. He now starts Sunday’s pair of 23-lap races from the fifth row.

His team-mate for the weekend, Sheridan Morais, was unable to find a set-up which would allow him to ride at the same pace he showed at Kyalami earlier this year, but he will try more solutions in morning warm-up to let him fight for points scoring finishes in the races. Sheridan was 23rd fastest of the 26 WSB riders in France.

Magny-Cours has enjoyed some almost balmy weather conditions for this time of year and both Broc and Sheridan are hoping for a repeat of these conditions on Sunday, to use the race set-up data collected to its best effect.

Superpole started 10 minutes later than scheduled, after a rival competitor’s engine spread oil on the track in free practice, which took some time to be cleaned. This interruption also meant that the final untimed qualifying session itself was reduced to 30 minutes duration, robbing all present of some vital set-up time.

Broc Parkes: “We had a bit of an issue when we put the qualifier in, as the bike was harder to turn. That meant we did a time about the same as we did on the regular race tyres. The good news is that on race tyres things are much better and we can get to a good consistent pace. So we need to get a quick start in the races and then we should be able to run much nearer the front than we qualified.”

Sheridan Morais: “Broc and I are sort of in the same position, and we have tried a few things to try and get the bike turning the way we want it to in the faster sections. Stability under braking is good. We are getting good movement from the suspension and so on as well. We are having a bit of a debrief to see what we can improve for tomorrow.”