Rizla glad of strong lead from Reynolds.

Crash.net managed to collar one very busy man at the recent Croft round of the Bennetts British Superbike championship and that Rizla Suzuki's Mark Hanna, chassis technician to John Reynolds.

With JR back in the saddle, Mark explained how important it is to have your number one rider around from the outset: "It's been a bit of a struggle with John injuring himself at the beginning of the year and Scott new to the team. Scott had an up hill battle to try and get all the data from the bike to make it better for himself.

"We really needed John there from the start because he is familiar with the characteristic of this engine as it is very similar to what we had last year. Not having John around we just struggled basically and that is why we are a little bit behind. You can cut out a lot of things that you don't need to be testing. John knows a lot of things that need to be put on the bike and he can tell us straight away just be testing it, within a few laps really. Where as Scott maybe it has taken him maybe a day to sort things out."

The Rizla camp this year has had two riders sub for JR. "So far this year I've had Gregorio Lavilla on John's bike and I've had James Haydon on the bike," says Mark.

"Every rider is different to their style you know. The bike more or less stays the same in respect to the engine and the chassis, you've got to make the bike bigger or smaller for them or longer or shorter because they are big guys or short guys."

The question had to be asked, who is the most demanding rider. "I'll have to say it's little JR, the little sh*te!" he laughs. "He knows what he wants but that is why he is British champion. It doesn't come easy and he expects the best out of you."

With Paul Denning moving to Moto GP it has allowed Mark as a member of the Rizla team to go along and work at Moto GP too, something he has always wanted to do. So what is it really like? "Moto GP, I find it a very harsh environment because you've got head phone on 24 hours a day as the noise is unbelievable you can't hear anyone speak. But the work load is no different to what we are doing here, you know.

"We do everything 110% and they do it 110%, they've got a bigger budget than us, they employ more people, and from the outside they look a little more organised than us in some areas, but they're not. They just have more people they have bigger budgets they can employ four people per bike where I've got three of us for two bikes, that's the difference really."

The one thing that is different is paddock life, it's not so laid back in the GP paddock as Mark says: "I actually prefer the paddock life in the British paddock to be honest with you. The GP paddock is a bit... it's all confidential, you can't walk into someone's garage and have a cup of tea, where as here I can go next door, well maybe not next door," he laughs, as Honda are located next door at Croft.

Last season Mark was chassis technician to Yukio Kagayama who has quite a grasp on English swear words which he may well have picked up from his technician. "It wasn't from me. He was swearing at me I wasn't swearing at him!I maybe enhanced it a little bit! I text him after every race and tell him either he rode well or he rode sh*te, and after last weekend I'm afraid he got a bad one!"

Looking on the plus side JR is back and as Mark says, "It's looking good so we'll see how we go."