Hill and Ellison share spoils at Brands
Added on Monday, April 5th, 2010 by Carole Nash Editor
Hill and Ellison share spoils at Brands
Tommy Hill took charge of the opening round of the British Superbike Championship today at Brands Hatch, grasping honours by inches.
Pole sitter Ryuichi Kiyonari launched into the lead straight away, where he remained until Hill snatched the position on lap twenty two. From there, Hill went on to take the chequered flag, holding off a difficult charge from Kiyonari until the very end.
Swan Honda’s Stuart Easton made up for a difficult qualifying session as the lights went out, firing into third straight away from ninth on the grid. Behind, Tommy Bridewell slipped into fourth, while Josh Brookes occupied fifth place.
Determined to take advantage of a strong start, Bridewell decided to make a move on Easton with a view to stealing third. Despite Easton’s best efforts the Quay Garage Honda rider found a way through into third. The achievement was short lived, however, when Bridewell crashed out on lap 14.
With the top two positions taken care of, attentions turned to just behind. With third place switching a number of times it was James Ellison who finally claimed the final podium spot, while Alastair Seeley took fourth and Brookes fifth.
The remainder of the top ten was filled with Easton, after being forced backwards, Michael Rutter, Dan Linfoot, Chris Walker and John Laverty.
Commenting on his victory, Hill said: “That was a hard race, especially towards the end as there were a lot of backmarkers and I nearly lost my head as I didn’t want to lose the lead. I have to admit I started to panic as I thought it could go wrong, but on the last lap I knew that was it. I came across the line and the team were celebrating so I am really peaking now. I knew we needed to get some good points in the bag as it is a long season but everything has been fantastic and I can’t wait for race two now to see if we can do the double.”
Race two was as action packed as the crowd could have hoped for, with James Ellison overcoming the carnage to take home the spoils.
At the start, Ellison jumped into the lead straight away, while pole sitter Josh Brookes slipped into second and Tommy Hill third. Not wanting to let Ellison get too far away, Hill made a move on Brookes, enabling the Worx Cresent Suzuki rider to weave into second on the opening lap. Despite his best intentions throughout the thirty lap race, Ellison triumphed ahead of Hill, presenting two different winners from the first two races.
From here things went from bad to worse for the rest of the field. First of all it was race one pole sitter Kiyonari who fell foul of an electrical problem on lap four; the next to suffer was Gary Mason, who also succumbed to electrical problems followed by a race retirement. The bad luck struck again on lap ten when Tommy Bridewell was forced wide by Michael Laverty as he tried to make a move on him, meaning he too was out of the race after crashing.
It didn’t stop here. Chris Walker and Dan Linfoot were the next riders to retire, when the pair came together and crashed out at Graham Hill Bend. After staying on the tail of the leading duo for much of the opening laps, Brookes fell out of contention when he crashed one lap later than Bridewell. Yukio Kagayama fell from his Worx Cresent Suzuki machine one lap later.
Alastair Seeley eventually finished off the podium, with Michael Laverty and Easton following in fourth and fifth, respectively. Michael Rutter finished sixth, just ahead of John Laverty and Simon Andrews. Martin Jessopp and Steve Brogan completed the top ten, giving Brogan a strong finish for the Mirror.co.uk BSB - Evo Championship.
With the first two races of 2010 now completed the BSB championship didn’t disappoint, as ever. Hill leaves Brands Hatch as championship leader, and now all attentions turn to round two at Thruxton in two weeks time.
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