British Super Bike test day Silverstone

7 April 2022

The third and fourth British Superbike Test Days at Silverstone are now complete, and true to form we are non the wiser to who will be challenging come race day, or are we?

Looking at the results from Snetterton, Tommy Bridwell was placed tenth fastest but recorded the fastest lap of the Silverstone National Circuit over the two days - 53.627 seconds to be placed first.

The championship runner up last year, Tommy looks to be on it again this year posting some good consistent lap times.

Rory Skinner was the only other rider to be placed in the top ten at both Snetterton and Silverstone. He also looks to be consistent and fast. He was only 0.164 seconds behind the fastest rider Jason O'Hallaran at Snetterton and 0.103 behind Bridewell at Silverstone. 

But is this the full story? What about the rest of the riders?  This is testing and there is a clue in the title. The teams will be collecting telemetry data from the bikes to analyse the new parts they have fitted and how they are interacting with the existing set-up from previous seasons.

So the riders could have been told to ride at a pre-determined pace. There can also be an element of not putting all of your cards on the table for the other teams to see - you might want to hold a little back, doubtful, but it could be an aspect. 

When I say a little that’s absolutely what I mean. We are talking hundredths of a second's difference here between the machines on track. One of the biggest differences between motorcycle racing and other forms of motorsport is that the rider input it has a big influence on how fast a motorbike can go round a track. 

Watching some of the riders at Silverstone you could see from the body language they were not attacking the corners at race pace. Having said that, the sub 54 second lap the fastest riders were posting is what I would expect a Superbike to lap the National circuit during a race.

But we are talking hundredths of a second splitting the top riders, so that last 10% could have been held in reserve for when the race lights go out this weekend for round one.

One of the other considerations when looking at the data is the weather. Some riders love the wet and others hate it, resulting in massive differences in results if you were to run a wet race and a dry race on the same track on the same day.

It all comes down to grip and how each individual rider deals with that reduced grip, traction and braking.

It wasn’t too wet at Silverstone, so that wasn't really a consideration as the few showers that did appear during the two test days dried out quickly not really affecting the times and results.

What could have influenced some of the riders was the cold, and this does effect traction and grip and how the riders deal with it. It was very cold. 

The other weather factor that could have had an effect on the riders was the wind. It so windy that the testing had to be paused when the air safety fence blew away at Copse.

If you have ever ridden a motorcycle in strong winds it's not a pleasant experience being blown off line, and when you are a top racer trying for that perfect lap it is going to affect you.

With gusty wind it's just luck that you get a clean lap. A head wind will affect the place you brake as will a tail wind, side winds can push you off line making those consistent flowing perfect laps difficult to achieve.

So this might have been one of the issues for some of the riders at Silverstone.

The most important event that happened at Silverstone was Taz MacKenzie crashing and fracturing his left ankle.

The reigning champion will have a tough start to his defence of the title as he now has a battle to get back to full fitness, especially as he came off in Spain damaging his right arm and ankle during testing back in January.

I don’t think he will be given the ok for the first round, but let's hope he can get back in the saddle soon. 

There were quite a few fallers during testing. Danny Buchan came off going into Brooklands, although it was a relatively low speed crash. If you look at the pictures you can see he has gone straight into a crash position, arms in and let the suit do its job.

He was up straight away. What was good to see was Glenn Irwin in the next round who made a point of making sure his fellow rider was ok before heading off. 

Glen is another one carrying pre-season injures from a crash in Spain. Maybe the series should be sponsored by ibuprofen!

Photographic Post Script

For the spectator photographer test days are a great event to practice your motorsports photography for a few reasons. First is the lack of spectators which means you can have an unobscured view and have access to the location you want to capture the action.   

On a BSB race day this will not be the case, a lot of fans turn up early to claim the best spots bringing wind brakes, wheeled trollies of supplies and camping chairs restricting your access to get that shot. 

The second reason is its cheep to get in, I used to be free a few years ago now its around the £10 mark. At the Silverstone test if you purchased a race day ticket you could pick a test day ticket for free so for me it was a no brainer.

Usually you can park track side which is helpful if you have a lot of camera gear and it allows you to explore the track driving to different locations, you will not be able to do that on race day. 

The down sides are few like its not racing but I get that and its not why I came along, few amenities like food outlets and toilets are open but that’s Silverstone.

The previous round at Donington everything was open but that’s a different organisation. Lastly most test days are mid week which not everyone can get to.     

The first round of the championship is over the Easter Weekend 15 - 17 April at Silverstone ,with the final test event at Oulton Park on the 21 April.

However, there might be another test day at Silverstone on the 14th April. This could be a replacement for the weather-effected Donington Test.

If you are attending the any of the races this year with your camera and have a passion for motorsports photography why not send in your images to admin@pistonclick.com we would love to see them and you might just get published!

Thanks to David Harbey for helping out with this report you can see more of his work by clicking the link below. You can share this report with your friends on Social Media.