BSB: Byrne: 'Our best first day for a while!'

Reigning MCE British Superbike Champion Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne says today’s opening practice sessions at Assen were among the best he’s had all year as he returned to form to lead the pack by half a second.

The Be Wiser Ducati rider has struggled in recent rounds and hasn’t won since Brands Hatch back in July, but things went well for the five-time champion on the opening day at Assen, where he lapped 0.8sec under the lap record to lead the way by 0.554 sec over nearest challenger Leon Haslam.

“That’s the best Friday we’ve had in a while,” he said. “We started with the bike pretty much how we finished with it here last year. In the first few laps before the red flag this morning I thought of a few bits to change and went back out and did a strong run, sussed a bit more out.

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“This morning was quite cold and we spent most of the session apart from one lap at the end on the hard tyre and when we were on the hard tyre we were fast, so that’s important as it can be quite cold here. We used the softer one at the end and that put us P2 but I had quite a few problems with the bike with extra grip.

“The boys did a bit of work to fix that for this afternoon and we went out and did a 13/14 lap run and it felt good. Again we stuck a new tyre in at the end just to see where we were and things seem good. There are a few things we want to try tomorrow morning in FP3, but we’ll see what the weather brings.”

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