Ben Currie on the box at Knockhill

Sunday’s Supersport race was initially red flagged after a crash on the opening lap, with the restarted race around Knockhill's 1.3 mile long circuit reduced from 26 to 20 laps.

Ben Currie got a brilliant start on the Oxford Products Racing Ducati Panigale V2 and was soon up to third from his fifth-place grid slot after passing Luke Stapleford and Jamie Perrin.

But drama struck on Lap 3 when race leader Tom Booth-Amos hit the curb at the Arnold Clark Chicane and crashed out moving Ben into second place.

Ben was holding the position, but Luke Stapleford made a pass half-way through the race, going on to chase down the eventual race winner Rhys Irwin. The duo made a gap at the front with Ben finishing his race in third, 3.4s down the road but also 3.5s clear of fourth place finisher Tom Toparis.

Ben’s podium finish sees him move up into second in the Supersport championship, just nine points behind Luke Stapleford.

 

Ben Currie (Oxford Products Racing Ducati #61)
“I thought I could have been in for the chance of a victory there, and to fight for it at least in the last lap. But about middle race distance it just started getting physically quite hard for me to hang onto the guys at the front.

I feel like the package was pretty much there this weekend, but maybe I’m just not quite getting the maximum out of it. But it’s still early days on the project so I'm just trying to understand things a little bit more.

The team’s done an awesome job to give me a Ducati this weekend that worked around this little nadgery circuit. I was a bit apprehensive coming here this weekend, figured it might be a bit tough against the Suzukis and Kawasakis. But we’re on the box here and we can go home smiling. And we've got some really strong tracks coming up.

I just want to say a huge thanks to all my team, the guys, John F Hunt, Ambipar, everybody that sponsors me on my helmet and leathers, everyone that supports me behind the scenes. Thanks very much and roll on Snetterton!”

Tom Higham