From a press release issued by MS Aprilia:

MS Aprilia Racing’s British pairing of Jeremy McWilliams and Shane Byrne will start the new MotoGP world championship in South Africa tomorrow from the sixth and seventh rows of the grid respectively.

McWilliams qualified his RS Cube in 17th position while reigning British superbike champion Byrne will start two places further back as he prepares to make his MotoGP debut in the 28-lap race at the Welkom circuit.

With conditions somewhat cooler from yesterday’s bright and sunny weather, the riders spent today trying to adapt the set-up of the RS Cube to cope with the climatic change.

Pietro Caprara, crew chief for Jeremy McWilliams said: “It wasn’t only because of the weather changes but we continued development work today and tested new ignition mapping settings to find the best solution. It is crucial at this track because of the high altitude.”

McWilliams, who battled against a rear suspension set-up problem that limited his progress in the tight and twisty final section of the track, said: “I had a problem with the rear suspension. The tyres worked very well but my problems were in the last part of the track where the grip wasn’t so good. I was losing a lot of time in that part, but this afternoon we worked to try and find a solution and we have other things to try in the warm-up.”

Byrne is eagerly looking forward to his debut tomorrow, and he might have been higher up the final grid had it not been for a clutch problem in the crucial final session. He still ended up only two seconds off pole position to show how quickly he has adapted to the new surroundings of MotoGP racing.

He said: “This morning was fine and I felt pretty comfortable on the bike. In the qualifying session I had a problem with the clutch and that meant I had to change to my second bike. But it wasn’t set up the same as my number one bike. I am just learning but tomorrow I’m sure that we can do something good.”

Byrne’s chief engineer Giacomo Giudotti said: “I am sure that tomorrow Shane will give us a very satisfying result. He has shown he is very fast. Tomorrow will be the first race in MotoGP of his life but we are sure he will do well.”