Christian Iddon will start from the front row of the grid on his debut with Tyco BMW tomorrow at Silverstone in the opening British Superbike race of the season. Third place is a strong qualifying for Iddon, with his team-mate Michael Laverty one row behind in sixth place after some small isssues.
Both riders battled through difficult conditions to make the final Qualifying session, which augers well for tomorrow’s opening race at 1.30pm over 14 laps of the Silverstone circuit.
Christian Iddon: “It surprised me because the conditions weren’t that tricky when it was dry. I’m usually the one to gamble but at the start I just went out to have a look. Q2 was the difficult one for me as for the first time this year I tightened up on the bike. You can’t do that with the quality of the field and we squeezed through. Then in Q3 it didn’t really matter that much as you can race from the front three rows, but the Tyco BMW was strong and I can’t say I’m not happy to be on the front row. So all good.”
Michael Laverty: “I’m not overly happy with the qualifying but the second row is okay and we know our race pace is good here. In qualifying of course I wanted more in Q3 but I feel like I had an issue with the front tyre. It was something strange as I was getting chatter and the front was folding and by the time I’d worked out to get around that, I’d used the best of the tyre. Sixth was okay and hopefully we will get a bit of a dry run at it tomorrow; from there we will see what happens.”
Ian Hutchinson continues to impress on the Tyco BMW S1000RR and despite having one-eye on his road racing campaign, the Bingley rider qualified in fourth place in the National Superstock 1000cc class. Reigning champion Josh Elliott crashed out whilst on a potential pole position lap in qualifying, but remains upbeat and will start from row three in ninth place.
Ian Hutchinson: “I just concentrated on getting laps in and didn’t get involved in all that late panic to come in a get a tyre to find a qualifying lap. The Tyco BMW is working well but I just missed out on my front row ticket to get a dessert tonight after dinner! I’m looking forward to racing the S1000RR tomorrow.”
Josh Elliott: “It could have been better today, but it also could have been a lot worse. Yes we start from ninth on the grid but I know I have good pace from our test here, so it’s just a matter of getting away with them and see how the race goes. I’ve got to be patient and settle in, but I’m confident we can still grab a decent result for Tyco BMW.”
Philip Neill – Team Manager: “After an almost perfect run in pre-season testing, it’s fair to say we arrived at Silverstone with a high level of expectation and with everything considered, we are happy with the result so far. Both Michael and Christian have put themselves in a strong position to challenge for the podium positions and Ian has excelled in his first competitive outing on the BMW S1000RR.
“Josh has already shown his ability during testing and although his weekend has not quite gone to plan so far, we have no doubt he will be amongst the podium challengers on Sunday afternoon. It would be fantastic to open the season with some strong results, although it is important to remember that the championship won’t be won this weekend”
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