BSB: Hopkins: 'Our season starts now!'

John Hopkins put his money where his mouth is at Knockhill this weekend to show talk of a step forward for the ePayMe Yamaha squad wasn’t overhyped as he took a strong fourth place in the opening race.

The American was on the pace throughout the weekend in both wet and dry conditions, going on to qualify 13^th before fighting for the lead in the opening race. Dropping back after mid-distance, he missed the podium by just 0.1 seconds.

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A strong start to the second race saw Hopkins once again with the leading group, but a nasty highside from fifth place saw his hopes come to a premature end.  

““The first race was great for us; the ePayMe Yamaha was working really good and we were then just trying to improve a little bit of the mid-range power as we were just losing a little bit of punch coming out of the corners,” said Hopkins.

“The bike felt great all race-long and I had been monitoring the gaps between us and I was trying to save my tyre until the end of the race to try and make a move on the brakes, but I just ran out of time. I did go for it and I got alongside Mossey coming out of the fast left-hander, but he was too defensive and there was no room for me to get through.

“We wanted to build on that for race two but unfortunately I crashed. I will be seeing some doctors this week to see what we can work on with it so that I am back to full fitness as soon as we possibly can.”