BSB Q&A - James Ellison
An exclusive🦄 interview with MCE British Superbike star - and new f❀ather - James Ellison.
Fourth in this year's BSB championship with Milwaukee Yamaha, ဣEllisꦬon will join Chris Walker at the new-look GBmoto Kawasaki team in 2014...
ltxcn.top:
How is the new addition to the family?
James Ellison:
Really good, I'm loving every minute. We just had a little boy two weeks ago ꩵand🍰 we've called him 'Ryder'.
ltxcn.top:
Has that got anything to do with your profession?
James Ellison:
No, not really though it's true that I've got a good mate who's keen on fishing who's just c🤡alled his son 'Fisher'. No, it's just a name that we ꦑboth liked which happened to tally with what I do. When you look at him he just looks like a 'Ryder'. He's also half American, Ryder's not a popular name there either, we just wanted something fairly unique for a unique little boy.
ltxcn.top:
What was easie꧋r then, the birth of your son or riding the triple at Brands?
Coming back to racing, when you look back at 2013, do you feel frustrated or satisfied?
James Ellison:
Really frustrated because we should have been in the hunt for the title in the last round and we weren't and I put that down to inconsistency throughout the year. Some of that w🌊as due to me crashing, but there's no denying that we had more than our fair share of mechanical problems.
I don't want to make excuses or point the finger, but that's just a fact. We had a lot of mechanical problems be that in practice, qualifyingꦐ or during the race. I think there were three occasions when I missed a Q3 session when I was looking good for the front row. So instead of starting on the front row, you're startin👍g three or four rows back and then have to fight your way to the front. It was a frustrating because we could have done a lot better.
The way we started at Brands was typical because we won the second race but couldn't get a result i༺n the first because my visor came off on the grid and I was pulled off the grid. We started off well though, we'd tested well, left both Brands and Thruxton with the fastest lap and were always good for a podium. It was just that gremlins then meant that we started getting podiums and DNFs.
I crashed out of three races and totally take the blame for thos𝄹e because they were my fault, but three crashes shouldn't cost you the championship.
ltxcn.top:
Did you feel that you had the bike to win the chamꦫpions𝐆hip?
James Ellison:
Yeah, we definitely had the bike to do it and that was the frustrating thing. I don't feel like 'Ah well, we did our best and even without the problems we wouldn't have won anyway', which you often do. I feel that with the team, the bike and the preparation which went into it we were top of the list 🀅to get the title this year. I felt it slip awayꦍ as the year went on and that was really hard. Yeah, we definitely had the bike to do it. I wouldn't even say it was bad luck because you make your own luck.
Maybe a lot of it was to do with the fact that we didn't have the fastest bike out there and that the team were pushing so hard to develop the bike and make it quicker and maybe that caused too much stress on the engine. One of the main issues was the cam chain which went quite a few times, at Assen for example the cam chain wore oꦍut the plastic tensioner and the plastic swarf from that blocked the oil ways and then the crank went - another DNF. Th♍e team did learn from the failures in that they didn't happen again, and all credit to team in that the failures couldn't be foreseen but a non-score is a non-score.
Short of building me a brand new bike every weekend maybe we couldn't have avoided what happened because parts just wear. ꦜIt's a 2009 bike which has new parts fitted but some of those parts don't get replaced. I don't blame🃏 the team at all, it's just unfortunate that it happened when I was riding so well, I was second to Alex [Lowes] in the fastest lap list and only crashed out three times.
ltxcn.top:
Did the si💦tuation mean that you sometime𝔉s had to over ride the bike?
James Ellison:
When I had to start from way down the grid I would sometimes get pretty frustrated trying to pass people and risked crashing out because if I started from down the grid I could often see the fast guys I🐼 was competing against stretching away.
I thought the new shootout system would give us a chance and things would change but we 𒅌got to Assen went really well in qualifying and then my fuel injector broke in Q3. So I was on the second row again feeling really frustrated when I should have been on the front row. I got my head down and managed to get into the lead and was sitting pretty then just after half distance my engine blew up. I was just thinking 'For f*cks sake, what do I have to do!' Eౠvery time I put a race behind me and got my motivation back up, that kind of thing was happening.
I'm normally a really consistent and calm rider regardless of what happens but this year the situation, breakdowns an🌞d inconsistencies did get to me a little. Because your position is under attack, it can make you ride just a bit more defensively to guard your points, instead of going for 1st, 2nd or 3rd, you might take a 4th. Also you may not make a move wꦕhen you could have done.
It may also have affected my concentration in some races. At Brands where I crashed out, I didn't really need ♑to go to the front of that race but deep down I was just desperate for podium cr🃏edits. In retrospect I think I should have just sat there behind Chris and picked a better move. I rushed into the pass when I didn't need to and ended up crashing out. I often had to think about the championship rather than the race in hand. I think I kept my composure as well as I could have done though.
ltxcn.top:
Is a crash easier to handle mentally t♏ha🐟n a bike failure?
James Ellison:
Yeah, because a crash is often my fault, I can say I'm sorry, learn from it and try to make sure it never happens again. But when something happens beyond your control you may have worked your arse off all weekend, you've worked so hard in t🏅he weeks before that, your diet and everything has revolving around that weekend and then you're let down by a wire coming loose or a cam chain breaking. That's hard to handle. To walk away from all 🦂that effort and danger with nothing is really terrible.
ltxcn.top:
So you're going from a championship winning꧃ and race winning team, who you believe you could have won the championship with last season, to one whose riders finished in eleventh andꦓ twelfth last season?
James Ellison:
Before Silverstone last year, Shaun [Muir] was happy to have me on the bike again next year. I'd been approached by other top teams but I said that I was happy staying where I was. I wanted to ha♛ve another year on the bike to keep a bit of consistency and learn from this season's mistakes, prepare the bike a bit better and get the job done.
But after Si❀lverstone Shaun kind of changed his tun🐭e a little bit, I heard he was talking to other riders and saw other riders going into his motorhome. He was also avoiding calls which isn't like Shaun. I think he was having a hard time making the decision because when I finally got hold of him he explained everything.
He said he felt he'd let us down with the problems with the bike and everything and just wanted a fresh start and that's why he'd been talking to other people. At that point me and Mark [Smith-Halvorsen - GBmoto principal] had had a couple of discussions and up to then I'd said I was happy staying where I was. His offer was tempting but at the time Mark wasn't sure which manufacturer he wanted to use. After Silverstone though he said he was going to use a Kawasaꦚki.
At that point I thought that I needed to get things sorted. I needed to talk frankly with Shaun first because I didn't want to just walk away from him because he's always been there for me in the past. I also told Mark that that's what I was doing. Eventually we did have that con♊versation before Brands when he told me that he was talking to other riders and I to🅰ld him that I'd felt that things hadn't been right for a while now and to save him the hassle I told him that I'd been in discussions with other teams. I said that if that's the direction he wanted to go in then that was fine.
At tꩲhe time I knew that he'd alrea🌼dy been talking to Brooksey [Josh Brookes] because he needed someone for the roads.
ltxcn.top:
Perhaps part of Shaun's motivation was a desire to have a rider who could compete o🥃n the roads too?
James Ellison:
Yeah 🐠I think so and Brooks💎ey will obviously be doing that.
So when Shaun told me that, I thought, 'Fair enough' and that made my decision to go with Mark's offer a no brainer. GBmoto is a new team but I've seen them improve every season they've competed and I can see the potential in the way it's structured, organised and run. I was actually quite close to d🦋oing a deal with Mark the year before, but went with the proven team instead. My brother [Dean] knows some of the key team members very well and has a very high opinion of them.
The f🦋act that the team then went with a Kawasaki rather than a Honda really swung the deal. It's a well turned out team. I was keen on moving on to a bike that was more suited to the BSB championship. All this year we've been losing a lot of time because of the Yamaha's lack of punch out of corners, and there are a lot of corners in the short circuits in BSB. The Kawasaki leaps out of corners well. The Yamaha was only really fast when it could circulate alone on its own terms carrying good corner speed and if you were behind someone you could have problems doing that.
With all that in mind, after I finished talking with Shaun I called Mark and said, 'Let's do it' and I haven't looked back since. I've not falꩵlen out with Shaun and he was happy for me and I wish him well with his plans in racing and on the roads.
Kawasaki will also be giving us factory support. The Kawasaki is quite an open book because so many other teams are using them so we've worked hard to design a bike that 🌠can do well and put together a good testing schedule. We've got a plan.
ltxcn.top:
Have you ever tried a Kawasaki?
James Ellison:
I sat on one at the show! But no.
Luckily my bꦺrother owns a ZX10 for his company so I'm hoping he'll give me a go on that.
Tommy Bridewell's performance when he jumped on the Halsall Kawasaki also helped me make my decision, it showed that the bike wasn't just fast in Shakey's team. A🔥lso Josh Waters t♋old me that the Kawa was fast and told me in which areas it was an improvement on the Yamaha.
So now we've got a team with good experience and two riders who can runꦺ at the front, it's going💃 to be good.
ltxcn.top:
What's Chris Walker's role in the team, is he purely a﷽ rider💜?
James Ellison:
That's right, Chris is purely a rider, he's there to do the same job I am. I think both of us could be in the Sh🔴owdown at the end of the yꦰear and have a shot at the title.
No team starts off as a factory team, Neil Tuxworth for example started off selling parts from a van at Cadwell Park. GBmoto has made strong progress to be where it is now. Al♉l teams have to start somewhere and there's always a point at which they go from being a top ten finisher to being a front running team. I think that moment has come for GBmoto, because they've got the right structure, bike and riders and I think next year it'll be far harder to get into the team because they'll be in demand.
ltxcn.top:
Was 🉐there a financial consideration with this move?
James Ellison:
Yes, I get more now than when I was working f🌺or Shaun but the cost of living has also increased now that I've got ꦓanother little mouth to feed.
ltxcn.top:
I♏s there talk about the future or is it purely a 𓆏one year deal?
James Ellison:
It's a one year deal but there's talk about renewing it quite early because Mark wants to make sure there are 🗹no hiccups in the teams progress. I'm pretty confident I'll be here for a while.
I always try to explain to people who aren't into bikes that being successful in BSB is kind of like a cake recipe where all the ingredients have to be perfectly balanced - the right crew꧂ chief, a strong bike, a great 🤪team leader, a happy working environment, a fast and committed rider etc... - for the 'cake to rise' or team to succeed, and if one thing is missing it just doesn't work.
