Da Costa happy with wildcard Honda pace

Julien Da Costa has made a positive start to his first day back in the MCE British Superbike Championship, finishing eleventh but happy with his progress as the Honda Racing team continue to develop their 2015 bike.
 
The team, who took Alex Lowes to the championship in 2013 on the same bike, have not stopped development of the bike this season despite not being full-time contenders in the series. The team were unable to find a rider for the bike they believed to be a title contender, and opted out, instead making four wildcard appearances with World Endurance rider Da Costa.
 
Joint winner last time out in the EWC series, Da Costa says he’s pleased with his day one progress despite failing to crack the top ten.
 
“It’s my first time at Donington in maybe five or six years, and I need a little bit of time to understand again the track. But the bike is better and better, and we did the lap time with a very old tyre – maybe thirty laps! It’s quite good, and we’ve tested a lot of pieces – a new swinging arm, a new shock, and we’ve had time to put pieces after pieces into the bike. We’re feeling confident for tomorrow.”
 
“We have another forty-five minutes tomorrow morning before qualifying. I’m a little bit far from the pace, but it’s no problem for now; it’s just the first day. We finished the day with good feelings and the bike is better than this morning. Sure, we can go faster and be in the top five quickly.”