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The Voltcom Crescent Suzuki team has had a mixed year so far in the 2014 eni FIM Superbike World Championship. The season started with the best possible result as Eugene Laverty gave the team its first win of the series, but as the year progressed podiums were hard to find both for Laverty and WSBK rookie Alex Lowes who had their ups and downs, as well as crashes and technical problems that affected their performances in the first nine rounds. Voltcom Crescent Suzuki’s Team Principal Paul Denning shared with WorldSBK.com his view on the season so far.

“This is the strongest line up we’ve had since we started our World Superbike project back in 2012, we shared a lot of promise, some great results but consistency hasn’t been the strong point. This has been affected largely by not qualifying the bike well. If you have a big time deficit after three of four laps because you’re back in position ten or something fighting, you can come through very well and finish fourth or fifth, but the fight for the podium is fairly impossible.”

“This season we haven’t just changed riders but have new technicians and a new electronics system on the bike” Denning continued. “We need to unlock the system’s full potential and have a better understanding of it to give the riders more confidence in qualifying and push harder at the start of races. We’re up against the strongest Superbike riders in the world and full factory teams, we’re representing ourselves well but we would like to be a little bit close to the fight for the win. For us as a team a satisfying result at the end of the season would be to improve consistently the level of performance, so that the two riders can fight with the riders they know they’re capable of fighting with.”

With the silly season soon to begin, Denning has a clear idea of how he would like his team’s rider line-up to be next year: “Eugene is on a simple year agreement, where as with Alex as a team we have the right to extend the agreement into the second year if we wish to. As it sits right now we could do a lot worse than keeping the same two riders. Alex is in his rookie year so there has been a lot to learn and when things have been right he’s shown a superb level of speed. Eugene has clearly race winning credential and championship challenging abilities so second year same team, knowing the bike knowing the strong and weak points, that would be the strongest situation. It’s going to be a matter of Eugene’s side opportunities he might have elsewhere and also if we have the budget to do it properly. We will do our best to put everything together and be as strong as we can.”