The HM Plant Honda team are feeling confident after the opening day of free practice at Knockhill ahead of this weekend’s fifth round of the British Superbike Championship.

Shane 'Shakey' Byrne leads the standings ahead of the weekend and after running fastest early in the sessions he ended the day fifth after encountering traffic in the closing stages of free practice two. Ryuichi Kiyonari was seventh and feeling confident that he can improve his pace again tomorrow ahead of qualifying at a track that has bought him victories in the past. In the Superstock 1000 Championship Jason O’Halloran was eleventh fastest in the opening qualifying session, with the HM Plant Honda team working hard to find the optimum setting ahead of the second session tomorrow.

Shakey said:

“Today has been fun; or as much fun as you can have in the rain at Knockhill! I was leading the first practice session towards the end but then we had a couple of small issues so I didn’t complete the last part so we dropped down to third. We changed the engine for the second session, just to be on the safe side, and it worked well. We just made a few adjustments to the chassis settings and we were definitely heading in the right direction. We just went out there got into a good rhythm and I thought I could go faster but I just got caught in some traffic and that was that really, but that said today was just practice and we know what we can improve again tomorrow so I have to thank the HM Plant Honda boys for their hard work today.”

Kiyo said:

“For me today has been a good day. It might not look like that on the timesheets in seventh, but we have made improvements with the set up and I am feeling more confident that I can push harder than at the last rounds. Every session and every run on track we moved forward a little bit and I think we can be faster in both wet and dry conditions as the setting should work for both. I would of course prefer dry but I am happier and now need to focus on qualifying tomorrow.”

Jason said:

“We have just been trying to find a good set up today and we have been struggling with rear grip in the wet every time we get on the throttle. We just need to sit down and work out how we can change it for tomorrow as we need to be up there in qualifying ahead of the race on Sunday.”

HM Plant Honda team manager concluded:

“It hasn’t been an easy start to the weekend for the HM Plant Honda team with the difficult conditions, but it is the same for everyone. It looks like the rain might stay so we need to find a good setting should it remain wet and both Shakey and Kiyo are feeling that they are heading in the right direction. For Jason the team have been making various changes and hopefully tomorrow we can make the improvements needed to move up the order in the second qualifying session.”