Yamaha British Superbike
The Swan Yamaha team set the pace in the penultimate practice session at Brands Hatch Saturday as Tommy Hill and Michael Laverty ended first and second respectively ahead of Easter Monday’s opening round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship.
Hill waited until the final ten minutes of the afternoon session to run close to lap record pace on the Indy circuit with a time of 45.499 seconds as Laverty moved within 0.008 seconds of his team-mate to put the Swan Yamahas at the top of the timesheets ahead of qualifying.
Tommy Hill (Swan Yamaha YZF-R1) says: “It has been a great day for us and we have been building up to it gradually over the three sessions so far this weekend. It has mainly been due to changes with the electronics and we have learned so much already and we are able to keep moving forward.
“We made a few minor changes to the chassis, but it has mainly remained the same as it was when we tested in Spain. Our race pace is good as we have done some longer runs and we know we can run the times consistently so we are feeling happy ahead of qualifying.”
Michael Laverty (Swan Yamaha YZF-R1) says: “It has been a good day for us and we have made some further steps forward with the electronics. They were just minor changes but it has made quite a bit of difference and then we were able to make small tweaks to the chassis this morning. This afternoon we did some longer race runs and we were running consistent times despite some traffic, so I am happy with our race pace ahead of qualifying.”
MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship, Brands Hatch, free practice one result:
1. Ryuichi Kiyonari (HM Plant Honda) 45.687s
2. Michael Laverty (Swan Yamaha) +0.081s
3. Tommy Hill (Swan Yamaha) +0.088s
4. John Hopkins (Samsung Crescent Racing) +0.186s
5. Josh Brookes (Relentless Suzuki by TAS) +0.259s
MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship, Brands Hatch, free practice two result:
1. Tommy Hill (Swan Yamaha) 45.499s
2. Michael Laverty (Swan Yamaha) +0.008s
3. Ryuichi Kiyonari (HM Plant Honda) +0.032s
4. Shane Byrne (HM Plant Honda) +0.037s
5. John Hopkins (Samsung Crescent Racing) +0.229s
