Linfoot making progress with return from injury

Honda Racing’s Dan Linfoot says he’s happy with the progress he made at the Snetterton round of the CME British Superbike Championship last weekend, his first round back after breaking his wrist at Brands Hatch in late April.

Linfoot had a strong return to the series, however, taking an impressive fifth in the opening race before making tenth in the second race – results that he says surpassed his targets for the round.

“[Team boss] Havier’s ambition was for me to have two top tens, and I only just scraped it, even if tenth in race two feels like a bit of a kick in the nuts after finishing fifth in the first race! But the weekend is a big chunk of point back towards my championship, and I’m actually not that far away in terms of lap times of the guys I want to be with.

“I think race two would have been about six seconds faster than race one, apart from the safety car, so we’re certainly making progress. Obviously, I came into the weekend not knowing at all where we’d be, so to be eighth in the championship is good.

“The goal now is to stay consistent, keep scoring points – and I have to be happy with what I’ve got so far, all things considered.”

More importantly than the results, though, for the Yorkshireman, was that he feels like he’s now almost back to the level that he was at just before his Brands crash; a level that saw him take a strong podium finish at the season-opening Donington round.

“I had no pain from the wrist all through both races, even though it was throbbing a bit on the cool-down lap. My fitness still feels good, and now I can concentrate on the rest of the season and get back to where I know we can be.

“The last five or six laps, things seem to click again, I felt like I got some bike control back, and I started to be more aggressive again. I need to have a full weekend again before I can be back at the front again though; by the time it clicked at Snetterton the leaders had already cleared off.

“No one has really tested at Knockhill yet, which is good – coming back at Snetterton, where everyone else already had two days on the bike last month was a double kick in the nuts. I’m looking forward to it and I’m happy again.”