It was a tough weekend at Mallory Park for British Superbike Championship leader Tommy Hill and the Worx Crescent Suzuki team.
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| Tommy leads championship |
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The Adaptaflex sponsored rider started from a familiar front row on the grid, but mechanical problems saw him in trouble from the start. However, an incident caused the race to be red flagged and gave the team the opportunity to change the clutch on the bike. Unfortunately it didn’t have the desired outcome and Tommy was forced to retire.
Fast work by the team between races saw Tommy up and ready for the second Championship race of the day the only downside being he had to start from row four on the grid. This left him with a mountain to climb to regain places during the race. Battle he did and managed to finish the race in the points in eight position hanging on to his British Championship lead by the slimmest of margins of four points. His closest rival Josh Brookes of HM Plant Honda had a double podium finish and is now on 150 points.
Speaking after the race Tommy explained, “Today has been quite a disappointment having enjoyed very productive tests here at Mallory and especially as we were going so well through practice and qualifying. Dropping out of race one with technical issues I was looking forward to getting my head down and chasing a top-six result in race two. I got shut down in the first turn and after that it was a long hard race trying to make up places.
“Obviously I’m not happy with the results, but racing always has its ups and downs so we are off to Knockhill next weekend and I’ll be looking for a return to podium finishes and podium points as I rebuild my championship lead.”
Team Manager Jack Valentine added,” Tommy’s problem in the first race turned out to be a rear wheel speed sensor issue which confused the ECU. He then had to ride in damage limitation mode in order to bring home the points in the second race to maintain his championship lead.”
Round 6 of the British Superbikes Championship is next weekend at Knockhill, July 2, 3 and 4.
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