The opening round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Silverstone over the Easter weekend saw Jason O’Halloran, one of last year’s main protagonists, make steady progress on the 2022-spec McAMS Yamaha R1.
Continuing to make changes over the course of the three days, the Australian ace was in the thick of the action throughout albeit disputing the top six positions as opposed to the race wins. “It’s not been the most simple of weekends,” he said afterwards. “The package we’ve got for 2022 is very new to us, the list of changes for this year is as long as my arm and it takes time to get used to that, but you have to stick with it.” A brace of fifths and a sixth proved to be the outcome of the three races and he left the Northamptonshire venue in sixth place in the early season table. “Obviously fifth isn’t where we want to be but it’s a solid start. We have said since the start of the year that we wanted to lift our ceiling and step forward this year and the changes to the bike are positive,” he said. “It’s all valuable data and we just need to keep working with it and the progress will come.” The third and final race saw the gap to race winner Glenn Irwin at its lowest, just 2.6s, and also saw some strong moves from O’Halloran as he admitted later it was the most competitive he’d felt all weekend.
“The final race of the weekend was the first time I felt like I was in the race and we figured out the areas we need to improve,” he said. “We’re not a million miles away with the chassis settings and the more I ride the bike, the more I know it and although the result isn’t a win or a podium, I’m actually really happy with the work we’ve done this weekend as I know it will pay off in the long run.” Team boss Steve Rodgers echoed those words and admitted it had been a tough weekend for his sole rider with reigning champion Tarran Mackenzie continuing to recover from the broken ankle sustained recently in testing. “Most people don’t realise but in 2021, our bike was essentially 2020-spec whereas for this year, we are on full 2022-spec so it’s almost like two years of new parts in one go which is a lot of change when you’ve been riding the same bike for two years straight,” he said. “We’re confident the steps we are making will pay off in the long run. They worked really hard this weekend and the progress they made was clear.”
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