Sean Neary Brands Hatch race report - Ducati 848 Challenge round 1

Race Report – Round 1 – Brands Hatch

Sean Neary - in his Held gear

It has been a long winter waiting for this weekend! After an awesome pre-season I was feeling confident in the run up. Unfortunately it was clear from the first practice session that our base set up which we had worked on in Spain and Anglesey just wasn’t working. I was running wide under acceleration which is the most crucial aspect to make a fast lap.
I finished the practice session in 6th which I was surprised about really as I knew the set up wasn’t working. After speaking with the K Tech (Suspension) support team we decided to go back to their recommended base settings and start over again. The difficulty of doing this at BSB is the lack of track time we get and it’s risky to make big changes when going into a race/qualifying. That said I knew we had to make big changes to make it work so I took the gamble and qualified 10th therefore putting me on the third row of the grid. We made improvements to the set up but we were still running horribly wide under acceleration.

Race 1
An average start saw me in about 12th going into the first corner however the elbows came out and I managed to work up to 6th position before the brake lever began to fade as the race went on. I managed to finish the race in 8th position. Not what I was looking for but a solid start! We made some more changes to try and help with the suspension and bled the brake system overnight.

Race 2
I struggled again in race 2 under acceleration and almost had a huge crash on lap 12 trying to ride around the problem. We once again lost brake power and it now looks like we have a damaged master cyclinder (sorry for the technical report which probably sounds very boring!) We will be purchasing a new one to eliminate this problem moving forward.
Brands Hatch was always going to be a tough round as we don’t do any testing there but I didn’t expect it to be as tough as it was. I will now get some testing in before Donington to ensure we can get to a good base setting with our suspension and we should be flying. The pace was hot in the 848 Challenge so it’s going to be a great season.
Thanks to all my sponsors for making this happen. We come away from round 1, 10th in the championship so we can now build on this now and I will be giving the gym some treatment until the next round!!!

For more information on the Held motorcycle gear that Sean wears please visit www.held-uk.co.uk

4th in the Championship for Held wearer Weeden

Held wearer Tom Weeden endured a difficult time at Brands Hatch for round 5 of the Triumph Triple Challenge last weekend. At his local circuit Tom was hoping to be able to push for podium positions to gain as many points as possible after walking into the meeting in 3rd position in the championship. The meeting was split into two racing on both the Indy and GP circuit configurations; with practice, qualifying and one race on the Indy circuit on Friday, followed by a practice on the GP circuit on Saturday and then a race on the GP circuit on Sunday. 

Focus on Tom people- in the middle ;)

 After two months without riding due to a gap in the season, Tom got off to a slow start in practice and it was clear a few of the other riders had been out testing the circuit in the layoff period. Tom was chasing a suspension set up as he did not feel comfortable on the bike, the team made changes in pit lane however the issues still presented themselves. It was later found out when Tom pulled back into the team awning that a mechanical issue with the rear wheel was the cause of the problem and as such the suspension data achieved was incorrect. Tom was on the back foot for qualifying after having such limited practice and set up time round the circuit. He could only manage to go 17th fastest and Tom was going to have to fight through from the back if he had any chance of scoring some decent points in the races. 

Tom Weeden- huge talent, huge promise

Tom got a great drive off the line in race 1 and was up into 12 positions by the end of lap 1. Unfortunately Tom was struggling with the set up of the bike, finding it hard to turn and lacking rear grip. He dropped to 13th on lap 4 and just could match the pace of the pack in front of him. Weeden held 13th place to the finish line and was very disappointed with the way the day had panned out. He made changes for the GP track practice session on Saturday and was feeling confident he could push for a higher placed finish on Sunday. Weeden went 8th quickest in the practice session and was starting to feel more comfortable on the bike after the two month absence.

Based on laptimes in race 1 on the Indy circuit, Weeden was to start race 2 on the GP circuit from 15th on the grid, however he remained positive and felt he had the pace to push for a top 10 finish to try and salvage some points from the weekend. He made another great start and was up into 12th by the end of lap 1. He continued to push and worked his way up into 10th on lap 2, going around the outside of one rider into Surtees and then getting the drive down Pilgrims Drop to move into 10th. By lap 5 he was up into 8th position and had closed the gap to the 7th position rider. On lap 6 Tom moved into 7th position and immediately set about gapping the rider behind him. 

 Weeden had pulled a 3 second lead on the rider behind by lap 8 and was running in a comfortable 7th position. However in the last two laps of the race one rider in front pulled in with a mechanical issue and another crashed out of 2nd place on the last lap. This pushed Tom up into 5th position and he had managed to secure a good few points after a very difficult weekend. Weeden is now 4th in the overall championship and will be looking to be further up the front next time out at Cadwell Park.  Tom will try his hand at road racing this weekend at the Aberdare Park road races in Wales, racing for Trickbits Racing, where Weeden is hoping to gain some valuable experience and possibly a podium visit.

For more information on Tom Weeden please visit www.tomweeden.com and for more information on Held in the UK please visit www.held-uk.co.uk