Oulton Park: Round 1

The opening round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship took place this weekend at Oulton Park for the Oxford Products Ducati team and Tommy Bridewell. It was a good start to the season for Tommy and the team with pole position, two third places and a DNF.

Tommy looked strong from the start on Friday and he was soon settling into a good rhythm on the Ducati and they were eager to get going. He had a fantastic qualifying session and set the first pole position of the season for the opening race on Saturday.

He did not get one of his usual flying starts and had to battle for position in the opening laps. Tommy pushed hard throughout the race and started the season with a podium in third place.

For race two he started from fifth place on the grid and was in the mix at the front in the early stages dicing for positions. However, he went to make a pass on Tarran Mackenzie but realised he was not going to make the corner, he was forced to run straight on but clipped Tarran on the way through, which caused a problem with his chain and Tommy was forced to retire.

Tommy started 12th for the final race of the weekend and the team knew there was a lot of work to do to get a podium position. Tommy put the work in and moved his way through the field quite quickly, he was soon on the back of Tarran and looking for a podium position. He made a solid clean pass on him for third and started to hunt down the leaders, O’Halloran and Iddon. Despite his hard work it was another third place but a very good position after the lower starting place.

Tommy – “It was a strong weekend for us for the start of the season. The race results were as we wanted but it was hard work all weekend. We had strong pace from the start and I felt really confident with the bike, the team, as always did a mega job.

Everything worked perfectly, I’m so happy on the bike, we were able to make the tyres last and we managed to preserve the new tyre really well and run a strong pace at the front.

It was my fault in race two when I had a coming together with Tarran, which caused the chain to come off but we were running well again up to that point but it was a shame as it could have been another good result.

I can’t thank the team enough for all their hard work, through the off season and this weekend to allow me to just get on and ride it hard. It’s a really strong start for 2021 with pole position and two podiums and it sets us up well for Knockhill, which I am looking forward to.”