Over the weekend, Rhys was back out on the track, this time at Donington Park, ready for round 2 of the Pirelli National Sportbike Championship. After an impressive first round at Oulton Park last time out, Rhys was hoping for another successful round to add to his 20 points and 3rd place finish.
Rhys got his weekend underway on Friday morning in the first free practice session of the weekend. Throughout the session Rhys was struggling to control the rear end of the bike making it hard for him to get into a rhythm. Rhys managed to complete 15 laps with his best time coming on the penultimate one. Rhys posted a time of 1:36.065 to place him 7th in the standings.
After a break, Rhys was back on the track for another practice session before qualifying on Saturday. Still struggling with the rear of the bike, Rhys was able to manage the problem better and post a time of 1:35.322, coming in 3rd place.
Qualifying got underway on Saturday morning with Rhys battling it out for position on the grid come race 1. Taking a few laps to adapt to his rear bike problem, Rhys managed to get quicker as the session went on and eventually set his quickest lap time of the weekend so far with a 1:35.219, placing him 6th on the grid.
After a lengthy wait from qualifying, Rhys got race 1 underway on Saturday late afternoon. Rhys got off to a quick start and instantly jumped into 5th and into a battle with the leaders. However, a small mistake from Rhys later on saw him fall back from the leaders but still come in 5th place.
A short warm-up session of 5 laps on Sunday morning got Rhys ready to attack the last race of the weekend. Starting 6th on the grid again, Rhys got off to a great start and jumped 4 places into 2nd on the first lap. After a few mistakes, Rhys dropped back into 5th before trying to make up time going into lap 6 and losing the front of his bike, causing him to retire from the race.
The 5th placed finish from race 1 earned Rhys 16 points towards championship standings and placing him in 5th overall going into round 3.
This is what Rhys had to say on his weekend:
“This weekend, I was struggling with the rear of the bike for the first half of the weekend. A combined practice at P5 with about a 1-second deficit from P1 and qualifying in P6 with a 1.4-second deficit, I knew there was room for improvement.
Race 1 was okay though, I managed a great start and made up a place. However, a small mistake later on saw me fall back from the battle for 4th place but brought it over the line in 5th place”.
Rhys then went on to say:
“I was feeling good going into race 2, I knew I was slightly off the pace of the very front, but was hoping to give it a good shot.
Starting in 6th place again I got a mega start and pushed through to 2nd place for a while, but then slowly slipped back to 5th, I had a big gap behind me and in hindsight I should have just taken a moment to plan my move, but I went in to the Melbourne loop a bit too eager to make time up and unfortunately I asked just a little too much of the bike and lost the front”.
We’ll next see Rhys back in the Pirelli National Sportbike Championship in just over a month’s time, with Snetterton playing host to round 3.