Loris Baz and James Westmoreland showed maturity beyond their years to put together two strong race performances in difficult conditions at Croft race circuit this weekend.

Baz was on top form after qualifying 3rd on the grid. The French wonderkid relished the showery and tricky conditions to storm through to 4th in race 1 and 5th in race 2. His attitude had a positive effect on the Motorpoint Yamaha pit garage and inspired the team to do better.

Loris Baz Motorpoint Yamaha race 1: 4th, race 2: 5th

“That was great weekend racing and I want to thank all my team, from the first test on Friday we worked very hard and I managed to get in a good rhythm for race day. The weather was a little scary but we made the right tyre choice for race one, better than some other teams. I made a mess of both starts and had to do some hard work for the results but was good fun attacking riders. This is what we needed for all our confidence specially going into the next race at track I have never seen! Let’s go!”

James had a great weekend considering his confidence hitting first race weekend, qualifying on the second row gave him a good chance, the tyre choice for the first race was not ideal and he rode very well to finish 12th but struggled for a good lap to give him a decent start for race two.

With the track never really getting to 100% for race 2 it was difficult make up ground on his start position.

James Westmoreland race 1: 12th, race 2: 12th: “I feel we have made good progress this weekend although I would have liked better results for the races, this was my first time I have ridden the Superbike in scary conditions and I was too cautious with the tyre choice and paid the penalty. It was really hard to overtake from my start position as the racing line was where the grip was, I had good race pace and feel much happier on the bike.”

Rob Mac Team Manager: “A great weekend for us, we arrived with a different strategy and it paid off, Loris was amazingly calm in the terrible race conditions and you have to be constantly reminded he is only 18 when he puts together a weekend like that, Westy needed to be a bit braver with his tyre choice but had his best weekend so far. Well done to all the team at last we have a chance to smile and enjoy our Monday morning tea break.”