2022 Fri 15 Jul

Positive Start for Mackenzie and McAMS Yamaha at Donington Park

Results

Tarran Mackenzie and the McAMS Yamaha team showed strong progress despite being in at the deep end on the opening day of their Superbike World Championship debut at Donington Park.

Running a full WorldSBK-specification Yamaha R1, the bike was only started for the first time at 19:30 on Thursday evening with Tarran taking to the track on the machine in FP1 having never ridden it, nor any other bike with the suite of rider aids (traction control, anti-wheelie etc) available in World Superbikes.

The team’s instruction to Tarran was simple, go out and do as many laps as he could and get comfortable with the bike and that’s exactly what he did. Steadily improving throughout FP1, he ended the session with a time of 1’30.211, which placed him 17th on the timesheet but only 0.7 behind full-time Yamaha rider Garrett Gerloff.

The team made a few changes to the bike for FP2 after debriefing with Yamaha Racing engineers and Mackenzie was instantly more comfortable on the bike. Breaking into the 1’29s early in the session, he would gradually chip away at the lap time getting quicker each time he went out. He’d eventually improve his FP1 time by 1.4 seconds to end the day on a 1’28.813, closing the gap to the front to just 1.7 seconds from the 2.4 seconds it had been in the morning session.

Content with his performance on the opening day, Mackenzie and the team are positive there are further improvements to come on Saturday as they prepare for their first ever World Superbike race appearance. Saturday’s action gets underway with FP3 at 09:00 for 30 minutes before a 15-minute Superpole shootout at 11:10 to decide the grid for the opening race of the weekend which gets underway at 14:00.

COMBINED PRACTICE TIMES
1. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) 1’27.016s
2. Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) +0.551s
3. Scott Redding (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) +0.582s
4. Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) +0.668s
5. Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) +0.714s
6. Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) +0.719s
7. Loris Baz (Bonovo Action BMW) +1.074
8. Andrea Locatelli (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) +1.289
9. Garett Gerloff (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK) +1.415
10. Leon Haslam (TPR Pedercini Racing) +1.454
11. Lucas Mahias (Kawasaki Pucetti Racing) +1.466
12. Iker Lecuona (Team HRC) +1.493
13. Axel Bassani (Motocorsa Racing) +1.518
14. Philip Oettl (Team GoEleven) +1.697
15. Tarran Mackenzie (McAMS Yamaha) +1.797

Tarran Mackenzie

Time: 1'28.813

15th

“It’s been a good day, we made a good improvement from FP1 to FP2 which is all we can ask for. I had a bit of an expectation as to what the bike was going to be like and in some areas it felt like I expected but in other areas it was completely different so it was hard to get around that at first. There was a lot of learning to do with figuring out the traction control and just generally trusting the anti-wheelie and electronics as we don’t have them in BSB. I felt quite good on the bike, we had a few issues this morning so it was nice to have a clear run in FP2 and we made a good improvement, so if we can do the same in FP3 then we’ll see what Qualifying and the first race of the weekend. I’m looking forward to it and most important of all, I’m really enjoying it which is what we came here for!”

Steve Rodgers

Team Principal

“We had literally no expectations today, we built the bike with Yamaha yesterday – a huge job which took around 14 hours, and Tarran has never ridden it before so we were in at the deep end really. We just wanted him to get as many laps as he could and learn the bike and that’s exactly what he did. I think we have to be happy with where we are at the end of the opening day all things considered, there’s definitely more to come so if we can take another step forward tomorrow and keep heading in the same direction we’ll be happy.”

Pos	Rider	Team	Bike	PTS
1	Jason O'Halloran	McAMS Yamaha	Yamaha	331
2	Bradley Ray	RICH Energy OMG Racing Yamaha	Yamaha	307
3	Lee Jackson	FS-3 Racing Kawasaki	Kawasaki	219
4	Rory Skinner	FS-3 Racing Kawasaki	Kawasaki	199
5	Glenn Irwin	Honda Racing	Honda	192
6	Kyle Ryde	RICH Energy OMG Racing Yamaha	Yamaha	173
7	Tarran Mackenzie	McAMS Yamaha	Yamaha	170
8	Tommy Bridewell	Oxford Products	Ducati	158
9	Peter Hickman	FHO Racing BMW	BMW	115
10	Leon Haslam	VisionTrack Kawasaki	Kawasaki	109

R7

Tarran Mackenzie

Time: 1'28.813

15th

Steve Rodgers

Team Principal