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Chaz Checks In... Jerez

After my final pre-season test at Jerez it was only just over a week before I was back on the plane to the same place for the first GP.

During that week there were a couple of press things to do but nothing to taxing and apart from that it went very quickly and before I knew it I was back in Jerez.

My mum, dad and I went down to Stansted on Sunday night and stayed in a hotel because of the early flight at 7am the following morning. Stansted is one of the furthest airports for us, about 3 ½ hours. My record is 2 ¾ but I don't know if my car would put up with that every time so Dad normally takes his.

It was an early start at 4:45am on Wednesday. We arrived in Jerez to some nice blue skies and sun which was nice to see after 5 months of miserable Welsh border weather. We went straight to the circuit to say hi to the team and to visit a few faces who we haven't seen since Valencia last year and that was about it for the day.

On Thursday I got all my kit ready. Arai had given me 2 newly painted helmets which were cool and I got another set of leathers and boots from M-Tech and W2. I talked to my chassis man Alessandro about where we were going to start with the setting because from 3 ½ days of testing we were still a long way off getting a base setting which I was happy with. My forks had been to Öhlins in Sweden who had found a slight problem with them where the rebound damping was not working as it should have been, which would explain the front end bouncing problems I was having in testing which resulted in me having to use the old forks.

The first session of the year was on a wet but drying track after some rain the previous night. It was a bit of a pain because I really needed to properly test these forks and the rebound problem only comes when I push hard which was impossible in the conditions. They felt OK but it was difficult to say whether the problem was gone, I would have to wait for a dry track in the afternoon. I was far down at the end of the session in 24th but wasn't too bothered about that. A lot of people just did one lap on a almost dry track at the end of the session which bumped them up the order.

In the afternoon the sun was out and I would be able to properly test the bike. It was a definite improvement to when I last properly used the forks at my first test in Barcelona. The bouncing was gone but the bike was still very nervous. We played around with the setting but were struggling to make any improvements. I wanted to be able to turn harder in the 2nd half of the tight corners and hold a better line but it was difficult to find that feeling. At the end of the session I was a fair way off the pace in 24th. I debriefed with my mechanics for a good 1 ½ hrs and we came up with a possible solution which was to shorten the bike, put harder front springs in and take off all preload. This would keep the front end further down into the corner and hopefully turn easier. Also that evening Jeremy McWilliams suggested that the forks may be riding on the oil at the bottom of the stroke so it may help to try to take a bit out. My mechanics agreed that it could probably help so we would try it the next morning.

Towards the end of first qualifying my team mate, Taro Sekiguchi crashed and as a result broke his femur. He has no luck at Jerez at all. On exactly the same day, March 24th last year and at a similar sort of time in the day, he completely blew apart his knee and broke his leg by clipping a bit of curb that was sticking out. This meant that his bike would be free for me to try and if I liked it, use it for the rest of the weekend. I was still unconvinced about my bike, although the forks were better I still felt that for the lap times that I was doing the bike was way too nervous and I have never known a bike be so difficult just to try and get some sort of base setting!

For 2nd free practice on Saturday morning I started on my bike to test the changes that we had made. It felt better, not good but better. I could now turn a bit harder in the tighter stuff but still had the nervousness in the quicker corners which so far we have been unable to get rid of at all. After about 15 minutes I tried Taro's bike. My mechanics had set it with my extended bars and what they thought would be a general setting for me and it immediately felt pretty good. It didn't have the nervousness of my bike and I started doing quicker lap times within a few laps. We continued improving and I was getting a bit more confident. It was nice to start seeing myself on the first page of our timing screens where I hadn't been all year. I ended the session in 18th, obviously not ideal but did a 1.46.6 as opposed to Friday's 1.48.4 and feeling reasonably comfortable. I was feeling much better about myself for final qualifying, I'd now had a glimmer of hope that things were starting to improve because it was starting to get tough.

We made a few small adjustments for the final qualifying but no major steps. We kept improving the bike to suit me up until a certain point and then progress seemed to slow up a bit and we were now just looking for small things. I was quite happy with the bike, I was still not feeling totally at home with it but considering I'd only had 30 laps on it I was feeling much more positive. I continued going faster throughout the session and ended up in 16th on a 1.46.1. I was looking to get in the 45's but made a small mistake at the last of the quick rights on may fastest lap where I lost the front and cost me a couple of tenths but still I was reasonably happy.

After the improvements that I had made in about 30 laps total from my bike to Taro's bike I am now blaming the chassis as a reason why I cannot get to grips with my normal bike. The forks were definitely an issue which have now been fixed but that didn't get rid of the nervousness and we think that the chassis has some off balanced tension in it. When I get on the curbs on either corner entry or exit the bike really snaps which is a sign of odd tension in the chassis. The difference in the 2 bikes is this:- My normal bike has a standard chassis whereas Taro's has a 2003 factory chassis, the same one as I used last year. For the engine, as far as I know there are no great differences. Both are standard kit bikes, completely different to the LE model that we were both supposed to be having. Taro's bike has a set of exhausts which used to be only available to factory bikes in 2003 but are now available as an extra 'kit' part to buy. I have the standard exhausts on my bike which lack a bit of mid-range compared to these other ones. As far as I know that is the only differences in the 2 bikes.

After qualifying I debriefed with the mechanics about what I needed, to go faster. I needed to be able to hold a better line in the faster corners and be able to turn the bike faster from the outside of the track to the inside, whilst keeping a good line. We made a couple of small changes to try in morning warm-up.

On Sunday morning we were awake at 6:15am and in the car by 6:30am. We were staying in the centre of Jerez, about 10km from the circuit and the traffic from anywhere in Jerez is a real nightmare. We got about 3km towards the circuit heading for the new main road that is being built, thinking that this should help a fair bit and then the traffic started. We queued for a couple of K's, hardly moving and then decided to take to another small road that we know goes to the circuit and not that many people know of it. The road was a bit too empty to be true, we used this road last year and it was good but we could see a couple of policemen in front blocking the road off. We showed them our paddock and car passes but there was no getting through, we'd have to go back to the main road. After a bit of arguing in my finest Spanish and not understanding a single world that they were saying I decided I better get out and walk the final 6km to the track as it was already 8:00am and I was out for warm up at 9:15am. It took about 40 minutes to walk to the track and I just about had time to do a bit of stretching before I was on the bike.

I had to run in new pistons for 3 laps and was also using a full tank of fuel which seemed to worsen the problem of not being able to keep a good line in the fast corners. I finished 17th in warm up, unsure about which direction we needed to go with the bike. I didn't really know what to expect for the race, I was hoping for points but wasn't totally sure I'd be able to do it. I still feel like we are catching up on missed testing and catching up from whatever problems we've had along with needing more track time on Taro's bike.

My start was OK, I broke a bit too early for the first corner and then at turn 2 Vincent cut across me and I got a bit duffed up. For the first 5 laps I was chasing Poggiali, Tizon and Porto. I was struggling a bit with the full tank and was having to brake earlier because of it. I started to lose touch with them all apart from Porto and just wasn't feeling comfortable and feeling awkward on the bike. As the race went on I was getting more and more pain in the muscle by my knees. Every time I get to a straight I have to hoist myself up and practically stand on the pegs to get back in the seat because of my height. I've had it before but there are certain tracks where I get it worse than others and Jerez has always been bad for it. In qualifying it's never been a problem because I never did more than 7 laps at a time but when you have to do 26 it gets a bit more difficult.

It was a tough race and also a boring one. I had nobody to fight with and as the race went on was feeling less and less comfortable. I crossed the line in 13th, happy with World Championship points but not happy with the way I felt in the race. After talking about the race with my mechanics we found that one adjustment that was forgotten when I swapped from my bike to Taro's bike was lowering the foot-pegs. The footrest hangers have 9 different position possibilities for the foot-pegs to go. I normally have mine on the lowest and the furthest back and even then we drill an extra hole as low as we can get it to give me as much room as possible. This was forgotten and definitely wouldn't have helped any in the race. I've got to look at the positives from the weekend, limited time on the bike, 3 points to start the season with and at a track which I have for some reason never raced well.

I'm looking forward to Qatar, I enjoy the track and hopefully we can fine tune the bike a bit more to suit me and build on our performance from last weekend. As far as getting the LE bike goes, it's looking very doubtful. The money has still not come and everybody in the team is now getting a little impatient. I'm quite sure I am going to be able to continue on Taro's bike until he returns, which is a bonus for me, but obviously gutting for Taro, he will be out for at least 3 months. Wish me luck in Qatar!

Chaz#57!