Silicone Engineering’s Simon Reid benefitted from some crucial seat time in Bennetts British Superbike Championship’s official test day, held at Silverstone on 10 July.
The first official BSB event since Covid-19 restrictions swept over the nation, the event came ahead of the first scheduled race of 2020 – at Donington Park on 9-10 August.
Piloting his Yamaha R6 complete with EBC’s GPFAX race pads and X-Series floating discs, Reid is now confident about the competitive action he faces in his Supersport 600 class, as he tells us below.
“I was really looking forward to this event as it would be the first real competitive environment we had all been in since last year!
“We soon got up to speed, with five 25-minute sessions throughout the day which made for an extremely busy day with around 100 laps under my belt.
“BSB organisers decided on a new mandatory tyre just for Silverstone, so this threw a spanner in the works regarding setup – the tyre was a bigger circumference which altered things for us. The main goal was to get into a window that we were happy with in regards to the new tyre.
“I was happy with how I rode all day; we made big steps. On average through all the sessions, we were found around P5. I set my fastest time on the last lap of session 4 with almost 40 laps on the tyre. We lost the majority of session 5 due to a small technical problem and finished in 10th place.
“Overall, it made me feel excited and confident going into the first round at Donington. This coming weekend, we head to Snetterton for a test day on the Sunday, this circuit is the host of round 2 so it’s nice to get some laps there. We then head to Donington Park on Tuesday for another official BSB test.”
Products mentioned:
Floating MC Rotors
X and XC Floating MC rotors are the lightest rotors you can buy, they will eliminate all your vibration problems and last longer than conventional rotors using round button technology. Both designs further reduce weight by using only six drive buttons. This further reduces the unit weight by up to 300 grammes.
GPFAX Formula Sintered Race pads
The GPFAX Formula Sintered Race pads are a direct replacement of the GPFA series. This formula is even higher in friction and created specifically to be used only on asphalt surfaces such as those found in race track conditions. Because of the super performance that they provide, these brake pads are a growing favourite choice of superbike racers. Another benefit of the GPFAX sintered material is that it now has even better heat cycling ability allowing the brake pads to be raced, cooled, then raced again.
