Storm Stacey is considering using his Superstock-spec BMW M1000 RR in the Superbike races at the North West 200 due to instability on his Ducati Panigale V4 R.<\/p>\n
Stacey is making his road racing<\/a> debut this week at the North West 200 and completed his first laps on Wednesday (6 May). He rode both his Superstock BMW and Superbike-spec Ducati in Wednesday\u2019s practices, but seems to feel more comfortable with the M1000 RR than the Panigale he is campaigning this year in BSB<\/a> at present, leading him to question which bike to run in the Superbike races.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still not sure, to be honest, because the Ducati is very unstable,\u201d Stacey told BBC Sport NI during a red flag period in the Thursday Superbike practice session.<\/p>\n \u201cI think over six laps\u2026 I was alright then [at the start of Thursday practice] and obviously BSB races are longer than what the races are here, and you get a lot of wobbles there as well, but the Ducati gets very out of shape, it wobbles a lot, whereas the BMW is very planted and just goes.\u201d<\/p>\n Stacey also encountered a quite specific brake problem with the Ducati.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cI done yesterday on the BMW and I don\u2019t know if the levers are different, but I didn\u2019t have any brake fade or anything all day on the BMW,\u201d explained Stacey.<\/p>\n \u201cBut then I jumped on the Ducati, went flat out on that back straight, got to the end and I had no brakes. When I say \u2018no brakes\u2019, I had a bit of brake, but not as much as I\u2019d like.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI managed to stop it just enough, passed someone, and then stopped it just enough to go on the grass, looped it round on the grass and then joined back on the circuit.\u201d<\/p>\n Stacey added: \u201cIt\u2019s the wind holding the brake on, so it\u2019s cooking the brake and getting really hot. It\u2019ll be slowing my speed down on the straight as well.\u201d<\/p>\n BBC Sport NI noted that the Bathams AJN team were working on a modification to the right handlebar to add a guard over the brake lever in order to prevent pressure being applied by the air.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Stacey is not the only rider to have encountered problems with the Panigale V4 R, Michael Dunlop having made a late switch to Honda machinery for this year\u2019s Superbike races at the North West 200 after he felt the Ducati required more testing time to get it dialled in as he wants it.<\/p>\n Additionally, Glenn Irwin ran into his own issues in Thursday\u2019s practice, although it seems to be more of a question of the Nitrous Competitions team learning the motorcycle than a specific problem with the bike itself.<\/p>\n \u201cNot so many issues, really, in general,\u201d Irwin explained to BBC Sport NI.<\/p>\n \u201cBike is okay, we have had traction control for here and it\u2019s new to us and to the team. It was very good in the wet yesterday, but it\u2019s extremely intrusive, so the bike\u2019s not really going anywhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI went straight on a couple of times due to an electronic feeling that we need to rectify. I saw Dean [Harrison], which was good, and he was just riding away from me where my bike\u2019s [on the traction control] \u2013 it doesn\u2019t pull.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cI could go flat out up Juniper Hill, I don\u2019t even think you\u2019re flat out there on a 600!\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo, too much electronic interference, so we can dial that down, but a couple of other little things that may come to light later in the week.\u00a0<\/p>\n Irwin also said that he\u2019s struggling physically at the moment with \u201ca little niggle\u201d and is due to see a doctor next week, although that could be brought forward.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a few things that we\u2019re struggling with, with me, which is frustrating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI woke up this morning feeling a little bit better, but it\u2019s a little niggle.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI\u2019m due to see the doctors next week before Donington Park [BSB round], possibly even tomorrow, which would maybe help for Saturday. I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Storm Stacey is considering using his Superstock-spec BMW M1000 RR in the Superbike races at the North West…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,28425,85],"class_list":["post-655669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-road-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}