Bathams AJN Racing: Thruxton race report

It’s safe to say that the past few meetings for the Bathams AJN Racing team have been a challenge. Handling limitations plus a crash during warm up at Oulton Park have dented the team and Storm Stacey's early season run of form. 

A triple DNF at Snetterton despite being one of just three riders to break a decade-old lap record at the Norfolk circuit and in doing so to become the fastest ever Ducati to lap the circuit was especially unlucky and cruel. 

The following round at Brands Hatch yielded just four points from the meeting due to a reluctant chassis. 

Oulton Park, once again saw a return to sub lap record pace and another front row start in qualifying followed by a fourth place finish just 0.09sec away from a podium finish, only for a warm up crash in which the bike rolled five times to dent the momentum of the weekend.

Thruxton then saw a combination of Brands Hatch’s uncooperative chassis in race 1 result in a distant 10th place finish with Snettertons bad luck with a technical issue in race 2 which also ruled Storm out of Race 3.

The team's ambitious project to build a competitive superbike from a road bike and develop it in house with its technical partners is ongoing. It has made significant progress in some areas such as the engine and electronic areas, and we continue to work flat out to find that final piece of the jigsaw to make the chassis more consistent at more circuits.

Storm Stacey (Bathams AJN Racing #79)
“As a racer, of course I wish we had a more consistent bike, but it’s also true that without the opportunity to test in season, we were always going to be doing all our learning in the heat of competition and in full view of the fans and media. 

At difficult times like this, it’s important to take a step back and remind ourselves how far we’ve come since we started. I know it will take more than a run of bad luck and odd wrong turn here and there with the development of the bike to dent my and the team’s motivation. We’re so close and we’re all looking forward to the next four rounds.”

Michael Rutter - Team Owner and Manager
“There’s not much I can say about the past few races really apart from the fact that obviously the recent results don’t reflect just how hard we’re all working. A lot of it has just been good old fashioned bad luck, some if it has been wrong directions taken by me, but that was always a risk when we chose to go our own way and not buy one off the shelf.

I’m confident we have a very fast and competitive bike, but right now it’s just lacking some consistency in the handling almost certainly due to us reaching the limit of what’s possible with the road bike components that we are still using on it. Our engine is as fast as anyone’s out there, so I know when we make that next breakthrough, we’ll be right there every time.”