EMS in the mix at Assen

The EMS Racing team made a solid start to the seventh round of the Superstock 1000 FIM Cup at Assen this weekend and are ready for tomorrows race. Throughout practice and qualifying the team worked hard and despite suffering some technical problems and a crash on day one, were still able to show their potential around the newly revised Dutch circuit.

South African Sheridan Morais arrived in Assen confident after completing a successful test at the Dutch track one week ago where the team were able to familiarise themselves with the new layout. Unfortunately due to mixed weather conditions at the test the majority of the settings did not work when they arrived for qualifying so they had to start from scratch in setting up the EMS Racing Suzuki. 

On the first day of qualifying Sheridan was forced to miss out the bulk of the session after a gear selector problem made the bike un rideable. The team worked late into the night to prepare Sheridan’s second bike and in final qualifying the 21 year old did not disappoint and looked set to claim his best qualifying position of the year after holding eighth place up until the final few minutes of the session. Unfortunately he had his time bettered and slipped to the third row and will start the race from 11^th on the grid.

“We’ve tried a lot on the bike this weekend and we’ve arrived at a completely different set-up to what we had at the test. We’ve played around a lot with the gearing, which is critical at such a fast flowing track, and I’m confident now that we’ve got it right for the race. I was really aiming for a second row start, but once again we’ve ended up on the third row. I’m happy with how the bike is working and as long as I can improve in the last part of the track we should be on for a good race tomorrow.” said Sheridan.

Mark Pollock had it all to do this weekend in Assen as unlike Sheridan he was unable to complete last weeks test so had a completely new circuit to learn. He wasn’t helped on day one when one of the Dutch wild card riders knocked him off at the hairpin. Fortunately Mark was unhurt but the crash caused him to lose valuable track time, which left him at the back of the grid.

In final qualifying, Mark was able to improve the set-up of the EMS Racing Suzuki and slash over 2.5 seconds off his lap time to take 33^rd position on the grid for the 13 lap race.

“I made some good progress today, which has helped me forget about being knocked off on Friday. We’ve been a bit behind all weekend but we made a few changes to the bike and now it feels better through the fast corners. I’m actually hoping for rain tomorrow because I feel it will be a bit of a leveller which should help us a lot.” explained Mark.

Mark may well see his wish come true with rain forecast for the race on Sunday morning, which takes place at 10.40am. Team mate Sheridan is happy with wet or dry conditions having tested in both last weekend.

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