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Glenn Allerton at ARRC test in Thailand | SPORT

Positive and productive first day for Next Gen Motorsports Glenn Allerton on opening day at ARRC test in Thailand

Next Gen Motorsports and Glenn Allerton have today completed their first ever Asia Road Racing Championship (ARRC) tyre test, which is being held at Thailand’s Chang International Circuit, also known as – Destination of Speed.

The Victorian based Superbike team and the former three times Australian Superbike Champion (ASBK) ended the day in seventh place in the overall combined times with a 1min37.543, which Allerton posted in the second one session this afternoon.

Allerton expressed at the conclusion of the day that he had expected to go faster than he did.

“I feel as if we should have been able to do 36’s today,” said Allerton, who did a total of 68-laps around the 4.554km Buriram circuit.

“At the moment I’m unable to get that lap time because of the heat. It’s hard to do fast lap times simply because of the hot conditions.”

While the day was mainly about testing the controlled Dunlop tyres, Allerton and the team did have a few small braking issues, which will hopefully be ironed out ahead tomorrow’s final day of testing.

Allerton explained; “The heavy braking areas are really big and were causing us some dramas today. It’s not the end of the world. The team and I will sit down tonight and work on our brake setup and get the bike to work a little bit better in the big braking areas and accelerate out of slow corners. Once we get that sorted I believe we will be better off.”

Overall, the 37-year-old New South Welshman was happy with how his day went, which marked his first ever time riding around the Chang International Circuit.

“It was very interesting to ride on the track, as it’s a very wide and open flowing type of track,” explained Allerton.

“It was just good to be able to get our bearings on which way the track went and of course get our heads around the Dunlop tyres. These Dunlop controlled tyres are a different spec tyres to what we use back in Australia, so it was always going to be a learning day. With a day under our belt, we can now start working on bike setup tomorrow and hopefully push for faster lap times,” concluded Allerton.

Next Gen Motorsports Team Manager Wayne Hepburn explained that today has been a positive day for both Allerton and the team.

“As a whole, I’m happy and the team are also very happy,” said Hepburn.

 

“Our testing program today saw us testing a bunch Dunlop tyres, which we got through. We had five different rears and three different front tyres we had to go through. At the completion of tyres, Glenn seemed to like the softer compound tyres, so we then focused on them and trying to make the tyres last a bit longer.”

With tyre testing done and dusted for the day, Hepburn also explained that tomorrow will see Allerton and the team trying to adapt the BMW S 1000RR to the conditions, now that Allerton knows which tyres works for him best.

“As we just focused on tyres today, we now have to work on the bike setup for tomorrow. We have a lot of work to do to be competitive with the local riders. It’s great to see that the field is so competitive and the local riders are keeping us honest. We are now looking forward to tomorrow, where we know we will improve a lot. Overall however, I’m very happy with how Glenn rode and of course how the team worked today. It’s a huge credit to them and I can’t wait to see how we will go tomorrow,” finished Hepburn.

Final day of testing for the Next Gen Motorsports team gets underway tomorrow at 9:40am GMT +7. In total, there will be three one hour sessions, before finishing with a forty minute session in the later part of the afternoon.

 

Overall Combined Times (ASB1000)

1st Thitipong Warokorn Kawasaki Thailand Racing Team 1:36.167

2nd Anupad Sarmoon Yamaha Thailand Racing Team 1:36.391

3rd Chaiwichit Nisakul Kawasaki Thailand Racing Team 1:36.460

4th Andi Farid Izdihar Honda Asia Dream Racing 1:36.703

5th Azlan Shah Kamaruzaman ONEXO X TKKR Racing Team 1:37.060

7th Glenn Allerton Next Gen Motorsports BMW S 1000RR 1:37.543