EMS Racing Caught Out by Rain in Brno

The two-man EMS Racing team saw any chance of qualifying on the front row end when a short sharp down pour in the final qualifying session prevented them from showing their true potential around the Czech circuit. After being in contention for pole position in the two practice sessions Sheridan Morais ended the day in 22^nd place, whilst team mate Mark Pollock finished in 31^st position.

Up until the final qualifying session this afternoon, 21 year old South African rider Sheridan Morais had been in sensational form around the 5.4KM circuit, setting the third quickest time in the dry morning Free Practice session.  Sheridan was the only rider consistently lapping in the 2m 08s barrier and was confident that his times would easily be good enough to secure a front row start with the possibility of pole position.

Unfortunately, as the 36 strong Superstock field headed out onto the track heavy rain fell, which completely saturated the track in a matter of minutes, and then stopped. Sheridan came in to fit wet tyres and returned onto the circuit, but despite the rain the track temperature remained at 42 degrees which caused the circuit to dry quickly. Sheridan soon realised that it was not possible to better his time using the wet weather tyres but by the time he came in to change back to dry tyres the session was coming to an end and he had no further opportunity to get back on track and improve his time.

“I’m absolutely gutted with that. I’ve been working really hard to improve my qualifying performances and really thought that pole position was possible. After racing at the track last weekend we had the EMS Racing Suzuki set up perfectly and I knew I could improve my lap time and grid position. The rain really ruined any chance of that, so now I’m starting a long way back in 22^nd place.” explained Sheridan.

“On the plus side, having raced here last weekend I know where I can overtake so I’ll be going all out from lap one to try and rectify the situation.” continued Sheridan

Team mate Mark Pollock had an even more difficult weekend as he had no prior knowledge of the technical Brno circuit, which is used for both MotoGP and World Superbikes. In the first practice session the 22 year old had a clutch problem that severely hampered his progress and in the final qualifying session he was caught out by the rain, just as Sheridan had been.

“It’s going to be a tough race because I just really haven’t had enough laps around here in the dry. The track is amazing but it’s very fast and very wide so it takes a lot of learning. We’ve got a few different settings to try on the bike and we’ll give them a go in morning warm-up so hopefully we can improve a lot in the race. It’s disappointing but I’m starting to really feel comfortable on the bike and I’ll be giving it 100% tomorrow.” said Mark.

The 12-lap Brno race gets underway at 10.40am local time with the ten minute warm-up session starting at 9am.