BRIDEWELL TAKES FIRST BSB PODIUM AT BRANDS

Tommy Bridewell took his and the Quay Garage team’s first-ever British Superbike podium when he finished third at Brands Hatch on Monday the first round of the championship.Bridewell qualified his Tyco Honda eighth but made a bad start, which dropped him to 14th and had to battle through the field to finish third in an incident-packed race.  “I knew I could be there but I doubted it after my bad start,” he said. “It was a hard, hard race but it came good in the end and I’m delighted for the team to have put the Tyco Honda on the podium.”Bridewell however, crashed in the second race and took full responsibility. He said:  “I let my inner demons beat me. My target is to make the top six and get into the three-round Showdown at the end of the year and I know I have to be consistent and finish races to do that.“But I saw Stuart Easton in front of me and thought, ‘I can get you,’ but then made a stupid mistake by touching the white line on the way into Surtees. What’s worse is that I’ve destroyed my bike and the team have to rebuild it now for Oulton this weekend.”

Peter Hickman had a good debut for the Quay Garage team, finishing a solid 13th in race one and then clawed his way from a 26th after a terrible start in race two to finish ninth.Hickman said: “I’m pretty rubbish at starting apparently. At least I have been this weekend! In the second race I worked really hard to get through the field to get ninth.Going into the final lap there was a group of three riders in front of me but I managed to get Chris Walker into Paddock and Gary Mason in the final corner and my lap times put me as one of the fastest riders in the top 12 at the end of the race.”

Swiss rider Patric Muff finished both races in 19th place on his Tyco Honda but claimed fourth in the BSB Evo class (for less highly-tuned bikes than the full BSB spec machines) in race one and fifth in race two.Muff said: “I’m really happy because BSB is all new to me. The track is new, my team is new and my bike is new. We’ve been chipping away all weekend and my fastest laps came at the end of the second race to show I was improving the whole time.”Quay Garage team owner Ian Woollacott added: We came here on the back foot after engine problems in testing. We had been working until the early hours every day for a couple of weeks. Then we set off from Devon late on Thursday night, worked all night to fit the throttle blipper system and Tommy has been competitive virtually all weekend. But to do what he’s done in the first race is just unbelievable.“I’m really pleased with Peter and Patric too. Peter has been really methodical all weekend, gradually improving the bike and what he did in the second race was really impressive.“It’s been difficult for Patric because everything is so new to him but I’m really pleased with the way he stuck to his task and he’s scored some good points in the Evo championship.”