Round 10 - British Superstock 1000 Championship - Donington Park

The penultimate round of the British Superstock 1000 Championship was held at Donington Park over the weekend. This was our 5th race weekend away in a row with the season being crammed closer together this year due to the Covid situation. Coming into October, the chances of rain on a race weekend in the UK is increased somewhat, but after qualifying 8th in the wet at Oulton the previous weekend I was ready for what ever was thrown at us!

Fridays first practice session was wet. Donington is notorious for having poor grip levels in the wet, and it was evident for us from this session that we didnt have a positive feeling in these conditions. My team worked hard to change the bike set up in many ways to improve this feeling. In our second practice session, it was dry and everything was feeling positive for that.

Qualifying on Saturday and the race both proved difficult, with both sessions being wet. The track had such poor grip levels that over 10 riders crashed in qualifying and again in the race, and some riders opted not to bother racing due to this. I went out in the race to try and understand why we were struggling in the wet so much, but we didn't really find an answer, other than that we had no grip. It was strange as in the wet all through out the year we have had a very positive feeling!

Sunday was looking dry for us, and I was 5th in warm up on Sunday morning. I had to start the race in 30th position due to the difficulties from Saturdays race, so I knew it would be hard to salvage some points from here! I got a good start and made up 10 spots on the first lap. I then picked some more riders off on the next few laps to be in the group battling for 10th. We had opted to go for the softer front tire due to the colder track temperatures for race 2, where as I usually run the harder option front tire. I was finding it hard to get it stopped and turned in the corners as I trail brake quite alot. I think we could have been even stronger if we had the harder front tire, but I crossed the line in 14th place, which I was really pleased with from where we started the race! To get into the points from 30th was a solid acheivement for us after the difficult weekend we had already had!

We now have one remaining race at Brands Hatch in two weeks time, I'm always working 100% to finished each race as strongly as possible and we will be aiming to end the season on a high! Thank you to my team for working hard in all the crazy conditions thrown at us over the weekend and to everyone who supports us!