DONINGTON PARK - ROUND 3

It was an extremely testing and frustrating weekend for Tommy Bridewell and the Oxford Products Ducati Racing team at round three of the British Superbike Championship at Donington Park. The team were able to salvage one eighth place from the weekend, Tommy then had a crash in race two and a DNF in race three.

Track time was limited in the dry and with the mixed conditions on Friday it was always going to be a race against time to find a perfect set-up on the Ducati. Despite getting straight through to Q2, Tommy was only able to qualify in 15th place.

The team and Tommy worked tirelessly to solve the problems and despite their best efforts just were unable to make the Ducati push for podiums around Donington Park. He rode hard in race one on Saturday and gave his all to work his way through the pack to gain eighth and put points on the board.

He was placed in eighth on the grid for race two, a good start saw him in a good position but on lap two he tucked the front crashing out. Due to lack of laps in the second race he was placed in 13th for the final race of the weekend and once again he was pushing hard but was forced to retire with a technical problem.

It is certainly not the weekend the team were hoping for, but they will re-group before Knockhill and try and find some solutions to kick start their season.

The team are grateful to all their loyal sponsors for their continued support through the good and the bad. The good times will come, we are sure!

Tommy Bridewell: “It’s been a really difficult weekend; we’ve had a lot of head scratching this weekend trying to understand the bike and which way we need to go with it. It’s not been the start to the season we’d hoped or expected after finishing last season so strong.

I’m struggling to get a direction with the bike, we have a lot of work to do to get us back to where we should be. We will be working hard to rectify the faults and get it back on track as soon as possible.”

Iain Hopcroft, Team Manager: “The team had a tough weekend. We thought we would be much stronger than we were going into the weekend, it was unfortunate to have a crash in race two whilst Tommy was pushing for positions with the bike we gave him.

We believe in race three the fuel pump failed why he had to pull in and Tommy had done really well again to fight for positions. We are disappointed with how Donington went but we will work hard before Knockhill and the remainder of the season to get the results back where they should be.”