BSB: Kiyonari shows promise with top ten at Oulton

Ryuichi Kiyonari showed promise as he returned to the MCE British Superbike grid at Oulton Park last weekend with the Smiths Racing team.

A tenth place in the second race marked one of the Smiths’ team’s best results of the year and sparked a glimmer of hope that we might see the Kiyonari of old return in some form or another.

The three-time British champion parted company with the Bennetts Suzuki team after a tough first half of the year but was thrown a lifeline to finish the season by the Smiths Racing outfit.  

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“It was a good weekend for me and session by session, race by race things got better,” said Kiyo.

“The final race wasn’t so good but, apart from that, it’s been good to be back on a BMW. It’s my first time on this particular bike and, obviously, my first time with the team but everyone’s worked really hard and although there are a number of things we need to improve, the solutions we’ve found so far have worked. With Donington, Assen and Brands coming up, we have some good circuits so we’ll be looking to keep moving forward. Tenth in race two showed what we can do and we made no mistakes over the three days so it’s been an important weekend for all of us and also a positive one.”

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