After the disappointment of not scoring at his local round at Thruxton two weeks ago, Tommy Bridewell bounced back with a superb points scoring ride into 11th place when round five of the 2011 MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship took place at Knockhill in Scotland yesterday.
The 22-year-old from Etchilhampton near Devizes in Wiltshire was hoping for a good result following the long trip north and with mixed weather prevailing during practice and qualifying, Bridewell slotted the Tyco Honda onto row four as the track dried during Saturday afternoon's qualifying session.
With brighter weather for today's races, Bridewell was feeling confident and despite not getting a good start, eventually battled into 11th place in the opening 30-lap encounter, just missing out on a top ten placing after chasing home reigning champion, Ryuichi Kiyonari on the HM Plant Honda.
With similar conditions for race two, Bridewell made a great start but on lap three, he slid off the machine at Seat Curves, luckily without injury meaning he was unable to add to his superb podium placing in the opening round at Brands Hatch over Easter.
Tommy Bridewell: "We made some changes to the bike this weekend and it felt a lot better although we got very little dry time because of the weather. In the opening race, I didn't get a good start so had my work cut out to get a result and ended up in 11th place. Race two saw me get a better start and I was feeling good when I lost the front end and slid right across the track, somehow managing not to get hit by the pack so I'm feeling very lucky. Despite that, I felt we made some good progress and hope we can continue that at Snetterton in two weeks' time."
MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship Race 1 (30 laps)1 Tommy Hill (Yamaha) 24m35.133s2 John Hopkins (Suzuki) +8.907s3 Shane Byrne (Honda) +9.123s4 Gary Mason (Kawasaki) +15.354s5 Josh Brookes (Suzuki) +21.816s6 Michael Laverty (Yamaha) +21.823s7 James Westmoreland (Yamaha) +24.920s8 Jon Kirkham (Suzuki) +26.558s9 Loris Baz (Yamaha) +26.665s10 Ryuichi Kiyonari (Honda) +26.925s11 Tommy Bridewell (Tyco Honda) +32.340sMCE Insurance British Superbike Championship Race 2 (30 laps)1 Tommy Hill (Yamaha) 26m12.073s2 Shane Byrne (Honda) +2.464s3 Michael Laverty (Yamaha) +2.728s4 Ryuichi Kiyonari (Honda) +10.983s5 James Westmoreland (Yamaha) +17.370s6 Gary Mason (Kawasaki) +18.557s7 Chris Walker (Kawasaki) +19.955s8 Peter Hickman (Honda) +20.201s9 Michael Rutter (Ducati) +21.351s10 Simon Andrews (Kawasaki) +23.787sDNF Tommy Bridewell (Tyco Honda) 4 lapsChampionship Positions1 Byrne 172pts2 Hopkins 1413 Hill 1204 Laverty 955 Easton 896 Kiyonari 847 Hickman 798 Kirkham 749 Mason 6910 Rutter 6917 Bridewell 33
