Mahmoud Tannir: Gearing up for a successful fifth round

Mahmoud Tannir 17:34 23/02/2017
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  • Coming into round four the team’s expectations were high, after the success in the previous round, plus testing on the circuit the previous week gave us a good idea on the setup of the bike.

    The weekend started perfectly with free practice on Thursday which confirmed our race pace on heavily used tires and hitting mid 1min 46s on the international circuit of Dubai Autodrome. The track was not in the best condition due to the race over the preceding days.

    Warm up and qualifying started with bad conditions of rain, winds and dust which forced the whole field to slow the lap times considerably to around 5 seconds off the usual pace. I managed to put my Honda CBR600RR on P1 for the race, with a time of 1.51′.4” and everything looked good for the race start.

    Race one was a struggle just to keep the bike up, more than worrying about my competitors! The conditions were harsh with wind gusts that affected our race bikes quite a lot.

    We run 600cc Supersport bikes and they are light, so this also affected the entire field. As we do have invitational 1000cc class on the same grid, I did have a few battles with them and used them as reference in the terrible conditions to open a gap to the 600cc guys. After building a gap of around 8 seconds, I decided to ease my pace a bit with a couple of laps to go to secure a very important win.

    UAE-Sportbike-Championship

    Race two was much better due to the Lamborghinis sweeping the track and laying down some decent rubber for us! We had a great start and led the field for two laps until I was passed by the 1000cc BMWs. I tried to stay as close as possible but was weary of the guys behind me. In spite of this, we managed to make a huge gap to the nearest 600cc competitor.

    My crew chief Ian decided it’s time to stay consistent and not do any silly moves as I noticed his instructions to slow down on the pit board, till I passed the checkered flag in P1 again!

    Even though we went into the race nervous about the weather, I believe our experience in these conditions really helped with the lap times. I just put my head down and concentrated on feeling the grip and the track which was nerve wrecking at times, but thankfully we did a great job!

    Now we have a considerable gap in the championship after four rounds, about 60 points, but that doesn’t mean we can relax. I will have to take it race by race and try to secure as many points as possible to maintain the lead. I’ve been training extremely hard during the off season and in Europe, and I feel great mentally and I hope to keep the same performance going for the next races.

    Next round is on March 3 at Dubai Autodrome and I’m looking forward to a great weekend!

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