Oulton Park – Round 2

It has been a mixed weekend for Tommy Bridewell and the Oxford Products Ducati Racing Team at round two of the British Superbike Championship at Oulton Park. Tommy was sixth in the opening race; he had a small crash in race two and rounded off the weekend with a fantastic second place in the final race of the weekend.

The weather conditions at Oulton Park were mixed on Friday and Saturday and it was hard to get some good consistent laps under their belt. There have been many changes to the Ducati this year and every track the team goes too they are starting fresh with new settings and making Tommy as comfortable as possible on the new machine.

Tommy was within the top five of both practice sessions on Friday and this automatically secured a place in the second qualifying session on Sunday. In FP3 Tommy topped the time sheets and his race pace was beginning to look strong. However, the weather changed for qualifying and in the tricky conditions Tommy ended up starting the opening race on Sunday from 16th place on the grid. He knew he had a lot of work to do but he always shines come the races, he got an average start but soon dug deep and began to make some strong passes and progress through the field. He was soon up to sixth place and rapidly catching the battle for the podium, sadly the race was red-flagged and cut short, he had to settle for sixth.

This promoted him on the grid to fifth for race two on Monday, in the dry conditions Tommy was eager to make quick progress through the field. He was about to make a pass for fourth but was caught out and tucked the front crashing out of the race. He’d managed a few laps and was placed in fourth on the grid for the final Superbike race. Another good start and great pace saw him eager to get a strong result. He managed to reel in race leader Brad Ray but in the process took Lee Jackson with him, he briefly took to the front but a move by Jackson saw Tommy pushed back to second, he had nothing more in the tank but secured a fantastic second place, his first podium of the season. He is now seventh in the Championship standings.

Tommy Bridewell: “It’s been an up and down weekend for definite. We got caught out in qualifying which made the weekend hard, we came through to a strong sixth from 16th on Sunday and we had strong pace.

I made a mistake in race two, but we bounced back in the final race to get second and our first podium of the season. It’s really positive all round and we still have a lot of work to do on this new spec bike but it’s certainly going in the right direction.

Thank you for all the teams sponsors and the supporters and we’re looking forward to some more strong results at Donington in a few weeks’ time.”