Iron man Christian Iddon produced a brave display at round six of the British Superbike Championship at Snetterton, scoring a brace of top ten finishes [10-6] despite nursing a fractured fibula, sustained just three weeks ago at Knockhill in Scotland.
The Stockport rider’s enormous grit and determination, helped him knuckled down and ride valiantly through the pain barrier – adding a further 16-points to his championship tally and keeping his top six hopes firmly alive as the BSB season reached the halfway point.
With Keith Farmer ruled out of action due to injury – also following a crash at Knockhill – paddock favourite Michael Laverty returned to the TAS Racing team for a one-off British Superbike appearance in Tyco BMW livery.
Having never turned a wheel on the all-new 2019 BMW S1000RR prior to the weekend, the Presteigne based Northern Irishman demonstrated his natural talent, as he wasted no time getting acquainted with the TAS Racing prepared German machinery. He delivered a convincing performance placing eleventh and ninth in the Superbike class. The combined experience and long-standing relationship between Michael and the TAS Racing team also provided a valuable opportunity to continue the development of the S1000RR.
In the Superstock 1000 class, Andy Reid showed plenty of promise throughout the weekend as his pace continued to improve session by session, resulting in a seventh place qualifying position. A great start saw the Northern Irish rider make his way up to third in the opening exchanges, and at one point set the the fastest lap of the race. Unfortunately a minor technical issue mid-race, hampered the Ulsterman’s pace, resulting in a 14th place finish.
Philip Neill – Team Manager:
We knew this was going to be a difficult weekend with Christian riding through injury to consolidate championship points and Michael stepping in a late notice to represent Tyco BMW in place of Keith. Both riders roles where very clear this weekend and with everything considered we are satisfied with the end result, solid results from both riders. It was good to have feedback from Michael on the new model S1000RR and we look forward to showing the full potential of this great bike during the second half of the season.
Our thoughts tonight are with the young riders injured in the SST 600 race.
Christian Iddon – #21 British Superbike Rider:
I didn’t know what to expect coming into the weekend with my leg injury, but having the same injury once before I had an idea. Friday turned out to be worse than I anticipated, I just couldn’t ride the bike to a level that was helpful to the team. We muddled our way through Saturday and I qualified 15th, but it was only one lap pace so I didn’t really know where we were standing. Session on session we had been able to get the bike feeling better to help with my body position. Race one felt pretty good and that I had good pace but a small mistake saw me lose 1.5s and resulted in a 10th. In race two I started 8th so that helped, despite a chatter issue we came away with 6th so I was happy with that. All-in-all I’m really happy with the weekend, we’ve had a pretty decent points haul which has kept us in showdown contention. Now I have a couple of weeks to rest and continue with rehabilitation ahead of Thruxton. The race for the showdown is gathering momentum, so the focus now is to start hammering in some stronger results to really get some points on the board, but for now I’m content.
Michael Laverty – #70 British Superbike Rider:
I enjoyed dipping my toes back into the BSB Championship this weekend. I had a lot to take onboard with the new bike and generally getting comfortable on it. I’m ok with 11th and 9th in the races today all things considered, although I do feel slightly disappointed as my pace was actually capable of a little more.
Andy Reid – Superstock 1000 Rider:
We made some changes in morning warm-up for the race which were definitely a step in the right direction as we took almost 0.6s off our qualifying lap time in the race. Unfortunately we had a little technical issue in the race and I just couldn’t sustain that pace until the end of the race. The result didn’t really show the potential that we had, but we have taken some more steps forward this weekend, understanding the bike more. I’m sorry to the team that we couldn’t get a better result, at the same time we have gained some more knowledge and will take that on to the next round and hopefully be up there.