Peter Hickman

Despite the additional pressure of a three race format and ongoing mechanical issues, Louth Superbike rider Peter Hickman completed all three races at Brands Hatch to pick up a further five championship points in round eight of the British Superbike championship on Sunday.

The weekend began badly for the Lincolnshire ace when his newly refreshed engine developed a manufacturers fault in the very first session forcing Hicky to pull out of the session.

But once he finally got going he headed straight into qualifying, making it through to the second section where he finished in 19th position for a fifth row start to the first race on Saturday.

“The weekend started badly when a manufacturer’s fault with a valve obliterated the engine. We lost the first session and had to run in free practice two with the spare which is not so quick. Then it was wet on Saturday morning so we missed that session and went into qualifying with just the one session under our belts. We are a little bit on the back foot to be honest but our times are not that far away so will give it a go!”

Hicky didn’t get away to the best of starts in the first race but soon moved back through to 19th place. But the race was red flagged at nine laps distance because of rain and a new race over 10 laps was declared. Hicky circulated in 11th place for a while before dropping back to end his race in 19th position.

“That didn’t go so well for me,” said Hicky. “I got away ok at the restart but was struggling with set up in the wet.”

By Sunday the rain had moved away and both races took place in the dry with Hicky finishing 13th in the first encounter and 14th in his final outing to pick up five more points bringing his total haul to 31 with four races remaining.

“Thirteenth and 14th is really not where I want to be,” said Hicky. “It has just not come together this weekend and we have had a bit of a rubbish time to be fair. We had some problems in the first race on Sunday so changed a few things for the second race but it only made things worse so I just went backwards. It is hard work coming from 22nd place up into the points but on the plus side I did manage it both times so its ok I suppose but I am still a bit unhappy with the way the weekend has gone.”

The next round is on home tarmac at Cadwell Park – just a few miles up the road from Louth – on August Bank Holiday Monday (August 30). Hicky will be looking for a change of fortune and will hope to put on a good performance in front of his home crowd.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 4th, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under , News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.