Round 2 of the FSBK OGP championship held at Circuit Nogaro in the South of France, not the most exciting circuit on the Calendar but challenging in its own way with the weather playing a major role.

Kyle excited to get to work on the Friday practice with Sun for the first time this season and showed great pace from the first laps and with some good data and setup changes was confident to fight for the top spot-on Saturday.

FP1 1.40.640 – P3
FP2 – 1.39.40 – P3

Unfortunately, Saturday morning did not bring the same sunshine but grey skies and rain in the air. FP3 the track was still dry but light rain falling Kyle headed out on slicks and set a good pace and rhythm considering the conditions.

As the lunch break approached the circuit was hit with a massive thunderstorm with serious down pour of rain delaying action for an hour or so. For qualifying the sun was back out but the track still very wet so rain tyres the only choice. As the session progressed the positions changed constantly as the track dried, each rider improving every lap. Unfortunately, with 5 minutes remaining whilst holding a top 10 spot Kyle had a problem with his bike meaning he had to pull into pit lane and unable to finish the session and had to sit and watch his name drop down the time sheets to eventually P19 as others continued to improve.

FP3 – 1.40.5 – P3
QP – 1.51.108 – P19

RACE 1

 Sunday morning the rain hit again but with the clouds clearing tyre choice a gamble, unfortunately after the sighting lap it was clear that we had made the wrong choice but with only 5 minutes on the grid no time to change tyres. Kyle however got his head down and fought hard with what he had and managed to work his way up to 9^th before the chequered flag setting a time 1.043 and destroying his rain tyres in the process.

RACE 2

For the first time in 2023 Kyle had a dry race but from P19 progress would not be easy. After 6 laps kyle had made his way to 9^th position when the red flag was shown. A quick procedure restart from 9^th on the grid with a 4-lap dash gave hope of maybe getting up to the lead pack. Unfortunately, the start did not go as plan and dropped a few places into turn 1, not deterred Kyle made good progress over the remaining 3 laps finishing 9^th once again and set a PB lap time of 1.38.4

Kyle commented at the end of the week “not the result I came for but I gained some much needed confidence in the wet and mixed conditions and I had good pace, felt good on the bike and the next round is Ledenon and I like that circuit so I will just hoping for a dry weekend to give it another go”.