Ronan Quarmby:Istanbul race report

Istanbul, Turkey

So it was the start of the Turkish weekend and I knew that their would be some riders that have already been around the circuit so I had to be prepared for anything as I had never been to Istanbul before.

On the Friday morning I got all my kit sorted out before free practice and had a chat with my crew chief on what our objectives were gonna be in the first heat.
He said to me that we should go with an hard compound Tyre to just learn the track with and stay out for all the session unless I had a problem.So first practice came and went and it was on to qualifying next!
I didn't end up that well in first qualifying cause I was riding the bike as fast as I could and still couldn't get one fast lap for qualy, and that meant that we did something wrong on the bike!

I had a chat with my crew chief and he said that they will make some more changes to the bike for Saturday's practice.So Saturday arrived and it went so quick, by the time I knew it I had dropped 10 positions from 1st to 2nd qualifying!
I came in and just had a couple deep breaths before I decided to talk with my crew chief again about the set up and tyre choice for race cause this wasn't looking good!

Sunday, Race day had arrived and I went out with a new Tyre in warm up and I couldn't believe my eyes when I got back in the box, I was sitting in 23rd spot!!
Then the team and I decided that it had to be the Tyre compound that we were using all weekend cause we only tried the hard compound in first free practice, we then decided to take a gamble as I was starting 20th on the grid so I needed to do something drastic immediately as I knew that if I race with the settings and tyres from the whole weekend then I'm not gonna do well in the race!

We decided to go with a hard tyre and some different set up, wow wee the bike had never felt so good around the track when I was battling in the field from 20th!
Ended up finishing 10th and it was a close 9th for me if I only had one more lap!
But after the race the team were happy and my self as I knew it worked what ever we did for the race on the bike!
Now it's on to France in 2 weeks time...Training hard and enjoying racing again, hopefully one day I can win a WSS race. FFO:-)

Till the next race,
Ronan Quarmby