World Supersport: Tommy Hill on target for factory ride

British Superbike’s Tommy Hill could have done enough in his debut World Supersport ride at Brands Hatch to secure a full time slot with the factory Yamaha team.

Tommy Hill survived three spectacular crashes during practice and left his team with a big repair bill, but rewarded them at the end of the day with an impressive top five finish in a hard fought race.

Hill admitted his three front end crashes had rocked his confidence but he was able to get regain it during the race itself.

During the final laps Tommy Hill looked well placed to fight for a podium but in the end the 22-year-old settled for a solid top five.

Speaking to motorcyclenews.com, he said: “I’m over the moon with fifth and it’s what I said I’d be happy with at the start of the weekend.

“I was close to the podium and I could have pushed for it but I wanted to bring the bike back in one piece. I learnt so much during the race today.

“It’s hard to come here and build up to it because we’re at a world championship race meeting and these boys are on it from the word go.

“The big difference between the Superbike and Supersport bike is that you don’t feel like you’re going fast on the 600 and that was my problem. I thought I was going slow up until I ended up in the kitty litter.

“I just didn’t know how hard to push and I’ve got to thank the team because they’ve been fixing bikes all weekend. They were working so late to fix the bikes I destroyed that I took a case of Budweiser just to keep them going.”