Josh Waters completes second Halsall Suzuki BSB Test at Guadix
The Halsall Suzuki team has completed a second successful pre-season test in the Spanish sunshine, with team riders Josh Waters and Christian Iddon spending three days lapping the Guadix circuit aboard their GSX-R1000s in preparation for this year’s MCE British Superbike Championship.
After a positive shakedown test last week at Cartagena, the team has continued work on improving the bike’s base-setting and also ran a number of race simulations, making sure both riders have a competitive and consistent package for the opening round at Donington Park next month.
Josh Waters spoke to MCNews.com.au after the test – “It was great to start our pre season testing in Spain, really good to be riding again.
“Everything in the team is new, including my side of the team so it was good to work together and get a direction.
“Also we now understand how people in the team work.
“I’m now looking forward to our next test at Donington and keep things going forward.“
Waters’ teammate Christian Iddon was lapping consistently in the low 1:13s over the course of his best race runs, while Waters was 0.7 seconds off the best time, but improved his lap time with every change the mechanics made to his GSX-R, showing that the team is moving in the right direction with just one test remaining before the season-opener.
Christian Iddon, who completed over 100 laps on the final day of testing, said, “It was another good test for us. We worked through some different directions with set-up, not always good ones, but we know what changes to make and what ones to avoid and that’s what testing is all about. It was nice to throw some consistent times in over longer runs, and over the duration of the test we kept bringing the average lap-time down. We now have a really good base to take to Donington.”
Josh Waters worked toward improving his base-setting at a circuit that shares similarities to Donington Park, commenting in a team report, “We worked through a fair bit of stuff at this test. It’s a different circuit to Cartagena but we’ve got some ideas to take to Donington. We’ve improved the mapping, which was one key area of focus for us, and I’ve got to know the team more and more. We’re working well toward the last test back in the UK.”
Team Manager Jack Valentine added, “This was another good all-round test and we’ve worked through a lot over the three days. We’ve learned a lot about the bike and worked towards the opening race weekend. We have a good base-setting I’m positive we could go and race with.
“We did a lot of race runs, Christian in particular, and he’s getting a really good feeling for the bike. He put in a lot of consistent and competitive times over a number of laps, consistently in the low 1:13s which is incredibly pleasing. Josh’s times have been coming down all week with every change that the team has made to the bike, which is really positive and shows we’ve been working in the right direction. It’s been about building confidence for everyone and I’m looking forward to Donington.”
The team will now head back to the UK and continue preparations ahead of the final pre-season test at Donington Park, which takes place on March 26th, with the season-opener at the same venue on April 4-6th.
