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Chaz Checks In... Turkey

After the Qatari Grand Prix I had 2 full weekends at home before we were back on a flight from Birmingham Airport on April 25th and on the way too Turkey. During my time at home I racked up some good mileage on my road bicycle, rode minibikes, a bit of supermoto and generally all the usual stuff. I also went too the BSB at Thruxton which was good to see some old friends who I don’t get to see too often.

We left home bright and early on the 25th for our flight at 9am, first to Zurich with a 1 hour wait there and then onwards to Istanbul. After arriving in Istanbul it was about 4pm local time so we just went for a wonder around the hotel to see what was about... not much! Our hotel was very nice, close to Istanbul centre but very expensive. For a glass of orange juice in the hotel lobby it was about £5! The traffic in Istanbul is unbelievable, worse than London for sure, there are absolutely no rules on the roads either. People cutting each other up left right and centre, using the hard shoulder on the motorway etc etc. The only problem with staying in Istanbul centre is that you never know how long it is going to take to get to the circuit. It could be 45 minutes at best on a weekday or it could be 2 hours, depending on how many Turk’s have imbedded themselves into the road barriers! Last year I counted 9 crashes in 3 days, but this year I only saw 2 slight bumps which was surprising.

On Wednesday my dad and I decided to take in a bit of local tradition and headed for the Grand Bazaar market in the old part of Istanbul. It’s a bit like a maze in there. Istanbul is built in the hills and the city centre is far from flat. It’s pretty wild in the market, they sell all sorts. Carpets, lamps, clothes and mainly just the old school traditional Turkish stuff. We wondered around there for a few hours until we’d had enough of getting hassled by the Turk salesmen and then navigated our way out of the market. There’s only one thing that me and dad were there for and that was a flying carpet like Aladdin’s but funnily enough no one seemed to have them! On our way back over to the new part of the city centre we had to cross over the bridge and were shouted at and followed by this Turkish tramp for at least 20 minutes. I think his intention was to p**s us off enough so we'd give him some money, it almost backfired on him though because my dad was ready to slap him if he hadn’t of walked away when he did!

On Thursday we went to the circuit in the early afternoon. When the team returned to Italy after Qatar my mechanics made the new seat section for my bike which I was well impressed with. On the Aprilia the sub frame and the seat is all in one and made out of carbon fibre so they had to cut out the back of the seat and then bit by bit, bonded in the new carbon, waited for it to dry then did some more. All in all they managed to extend it by just over 5cm. Also the team had managed to get a set of the extended footrest hangers off Aprilia, the ones which they had specially made for Simoncelli. Overall the bike was going to be a fair bit bigger and I was really looking forward to trying it. After doing a couple of laps of the track by scooter, sorting out my gear, taking my helmets to Arai and looking over the teams last year’s data we headed back to the hotel to have dinner and then hit the sack.

On Friday we were up at 7:30am to travel with the team to the circuit a 8:30am. The weather was quite bright but also a bit fresh on the lungs. It was warmer than last year though, last year it was proper cold! The first session was quite steady. I immediately felt the difference in the seat and the pegs. The seat was a great improvement in terms of getting tucked in the bike. Also the pegs felt a bit better in the way that it allowed me to open the angle of my legs a bit more and was less painful on the knees. The only thing that was a bit odd was that now the gear lever was about 2cm further away and was a bit easy to miss at first but I got used to it. After the session had finished I was confident that what the team had done to the bike was a big improvement and with a bit more dry track time, things would start to come together. On this bike I’ve never really felt like I can brake like I have been able to in the past years. After the session I told the team that I wanted to try the bigger Brembo brake discs like I had been using for the last 3 years but they didn’t have any. I remember in testing last year when I first tried the smaller discs I didn’t like them because they didn’t have the initial ’bang’ like the bigger discs have. As the team weren’t carrying these discs with them I went to the German 250cc team to see if they had any but they didn’t so I went to the French 250cc team and managed to blag a set off them which they weren’t using.

We put the discs on for first qualifying and the difference was noticeable straight away. I’m quite a hard braker and with the smaller discs I never quite knew where I was at and didn’t feel like I could consistently trail brake but I feel much more confident with the bite of the bigger discs. We also dropped my bars by 10mm which helped to turn the bike, also another setting that I have used in the past years. Although the times and position in the session weren’t by any means outstanding I felt that we had made real progression and now we were getting close to the point where I just wanted to leave the bike alone and ride it which is something I haven’t really been able to do at all of this year. All I felt after first qualifying was that I wanted to leave the bike alone, get some more dry time, build my confidence back up and start my season. Rain was forecast for the following day so it didn’t look like I was going to be able to continue making dry progression but I was happy with what we’d done so far.

When we woke on Saturday morning the skies were very grey but there was no rain at the hotel. On the way from the hotel to the circuit it started to fall and by the time we were at the track we were pretty sure we were in for a wet day. The 2nd free practice was my first wet practice of the year. The bike felt good right from the start but I didn’t take it near it’s limits. I was getting faster every lap but at the end of the session I had a small problem with my helmet because I forgot to put in the anti-fog mask. I finished the session in 20th but on a time what I felt was a good few seconds from my limit. On a wet track it only takes a little bit of extra corner and to get on the gas slightly earlier and you can gain chunks of time easily. I also liked the way my engine was working in the wet. The last years I have been used to a bike being generally a bit all or nothing. Really dull when I get on the gas but then kicks in really hard, not ideal for the wet. But the way that Campetella seem to set the engines is with a bit more of a consistent power curve. Smooth all the way through the rev range, with the power coming in from lower down. Maybe not making quite as much top-end but that doesn’t really matter in the wet.

For the afternoon I was quite confident I could do alright. It hadn’t rained for a couple of hours prior to the session so the track didn’t have as much standing water on it did in the morning. I didn’t start the session fast enough and make the most when the track was at it’s best before it started to rain after about 20 minutes. I had a couple of bike problems in the last 15 minutes of the session mainly to do with the temperature which didn’t allow me to get into much of a rhythm and I didn’t get a good lap in which was a bit annoying. Even so I was happy with the bike and felt that if Sunday was going to be wet then I would be ready.

On Sunday morning the skies were reasonably clear and it looked like we were going to have a dry one. Morning warm up was mainly dry but with some damp patches and considering the conditions the times were pretty fast. I was about 1.4 off my qualifying time, with a full tank of fuel, old front tyre and with the engine set safe for running in new pistons. I was 17th, round about where I wanted to be and with the sort of people who I should be with.

I was looking forward to the race and getting stuck in. About ½ way around the warm lap my bike cut out momentarily and from that moment on I couldn’t change gear using the quickshift. I thought about coming into pit lane but by the time the team had found the problem and I’d got back out I figured there would be no real sense in that and maybe it would correct itself. My start was so-so. The 1st gear we have to use at that circuit is quite tall so it’s difficult to really fire the bike off the line but I got away about even with the rest of the grid so it wasn’t so bad. I avoided the carnage of the first corner and then was set in behind Cardenas. I got passed by a couple in the first lap where I was having to use my hand to manually change gear. After each gear change the bike would misfire slightly and cost me some drive. At the start of the second lap I was in behind Poggiali and French rider Cluzel in 17th. I didn’t feel like I was pushing at all but was having to focus 70% of my effort on just changing gear properly. After a few laps I was still with the other 2 riders and they were easy to pass but would immediately come back past me on any of the straights. The ignition had started to cut when I was first getting on the gas on corner exit and that’s when I realised that I wasn’t getting anywhere. I did 7 laps and then stopped in the box on lap 8. I was pretty disappointed because I was ready for a good fight in that race. I’d have most definitely been in the points because with the problems I was having I was still on the back of Poggiali who eventually got 15th. Looking at the lap times I’d say I could have run with Cardenas who finished 13th but who knows!

All in all I feel we’ve made some real progress over the weekend. For now I just want to start riding the bike rather than changing things session after session. I feel like now we’ve got a good base setting I just need to concentrate on riding , refining the suspension and squeezing the engine a bit more. I’m looking forward to getting back out in the dry and picking up where we’ve left off. I have to say thanks to the mechanics and the team for making all the new modifications for me. Hopefully it will all start to come together in China.

Chaz#57!!