British Superbikes: Poor April qualifying costs James Ellison

James Ellison was left to rue his April qualifying performance that put him down in 15th position on the grid for last weekend’s racing at Brands Hatch, even though he fought his way back up to sixth position in race one.

Ellison had qualified poorly at the opening round with the team suffering from a lack of testing time before the weather put an end to the race weekend on the Sunday.

Hydrex Bike Animal Team Principal, Shaun Muir said it was unfortunate the British Superbike field didn’t get a chance to re-run the qualifying session even though the team were happy for the cancellation because of a lack of testing.

Muir said: “We’re running a different spec clutch here this weekend. We put it in at Oulton (Park) for the second race and that’s what allowed James to get such a good start.

“The old clutch had cost us off the line at Thruxton and in Oulton race one and we need it to help James get forward from row four.

“We’ve also got in some new oversized radiators for the guys because we knew of the problems the HM Plant boys were having with over-heating.”

Ellison had struggled with a 12th and 10th fastest time in the Saturday free practice session, but a few setup tweaks helped him claim a race one sixth position and an eighth in the red-flagged race two.