Luke was eager to keen to carry his
form on form Thruxton, where he secured his first podium of the season. Luke was
troubled with issues during the opening practice session on Friday morning with
set-up on the Kawasaki which led to a small crash in the second session in the
afternoon.
Free practice three on Saturday
morning went really well with Luke finishing the in third and looking good for
the qualifying session. Luke comfortably went through the opening first
qualifying session and his times were strong. Things all changed in for Q2, Luke
was out and feeling strong and as the session was red flagged for a problem with
Jakub Smrz. Luke had suffered a snapped throttle cable and had to tour back to
the garage, the stoppage gave the team time to improvise and tape his cable back
together. The Quattro Kawasaki team did a fantastic job and Luke timed it
perfectly to put a lap in to put him eighth and secured himself a slot in the
Superpole session.
With no time in between sessions
Luke had to continue to run with the taped up cable, went out for his out lap
and then straight into his one and only flying lap. He put in a stunning lap
time of 1.25.383, sitting watching the other seven riders Luke had done enough
to secure a brilliant pole position.
For race one he was eager for a good
result and he got a fantastic start and led for the opening seven laps from
Tommy Bridewell. However, his team-mate Filip Backlund crashed heavily which
brought out the safety car to fix the safety fencing. The car came in at the end
of lap nine, Luke struggled in the first few laps and dropped to fourth. He was
right on the back of Tommy Bridewell, Leon Haslam and Shane Byrne for a podium
position. Looking to set up a pass on the final lap, Tommy Bridewell crashed on
lap 19 of 20 promoting Luke to third and another podium place.
For race two Luke started from pole
position again after setting the fastest lap time in race one. He had a steady
start but dropped to third after lap one. He got past Haslam for second place,
Glenn Irwin came past him on lap seven. The safety car came out on lap 16 for
possible track contamination and two laps were added to the race distance. By
this point Luke's tyres had done all they could and he dropped backwards in the
closing stages to finish in seventh.
Luke Mossey - "This weekend was so mixed, full of
ups and downs literally. We were having problems on Friday and despite several
changes something still did not feel 100% for the second session. I ended up
tucking the front and crashing out, lucky it was a painless crash and I managed
to not do too much damage to the bike.
My Quattro Plant Teccare Kawasaki
team worked until really late on Friday night changing everything they could
think of to try and help me. I couldn't thank them enough as soon as I got on
the bike on Saturday morning it felt like I had my bike back and I instantly
felt comfortable and was able to go fast again.
I was ready for qualifying and the
first session was good, the bike felt strong and I was straight into Q2. I went
out, did an out lap then got my head down but went for the throttle out the back
end of the circuit and there was nothing there. Luckily I was carrying enough
speed that I was able to tour back to the pit lane.
The team were incredible running
round trying to fix it, which in the end turned out to be using duct tape! I
managed to get one flying lap in which thankfully got me through to Superpole. I
didn't have time to think about anything and I was one of the first to go out
and do my solo flying lap. It felt great, I felt good and I knew my lap was
good.
Then we had the long wait watching
everyone else and didn't think it would be possible to beat Shakey this weekend
but he made a few mistakes and after the first sector my time was quicker. It
felt like a long wait and he went P2 as he crossed the line, I was really
pleased.
I was looking forward to both races
and in both of them I had good starts and even though we missed most of Friday I
felt like I had a good race set up. I pushed hard in race one and I lost my
rhythm after the safety car went back in and dropped several places. I was still
on the back of them and pushed hard for a podium.
We made a few changes for race two
and I just wasn't 100% on the bike. I think I pushed too hard at the start and
with the few extra laps added at the end I just had nothing left in the tyres
and got passed by two riders.
We had a good weekend though and a
good bag of points. I am so close to the showdown now, just three points off and
five races to gain some more Championship points to hopefully get me into that
top six for the final three races of the year.
I'm looking forward to getting to
Cadwell. I can't thank all my team so much for all their hard-work this weekend
they did an amazing job."
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