Round eight of the Metzeler National Superstock 600 Championship took place today at Brands Hatch and the Aye Gee Suzuki rider Josh Wainwright secured a solid eighth place despite a number of mechanical problems with his Suzuki over the weekend. His new team-mate Andy Reid was riding a stunning race and was unfortunate to crash out of ninth position on lap seven.
The Aye Gee Suzuki team had to work all hours this weekend to ensure that both bikes were able to get out on the grid. Josh's bike required a new engine after practice on Friday and this caused a number of hours work for the mechanics to get the bike working well for warm up this morning, where Josh managed to end up in second place.
The new rider in the team was Andy Reid who has made the huge step up from 125's and competed in his first race weekend at Brands Hatch showing some huge potential for the remaining rounds of the season. The young Irishman did not fall outside the top 15 throughout the weekend finally qualifying in a strong 15th place. The youngster gained a fantastic start and was sitting in tenth place after the opening lap, the safety car was deployed on lap four to clear up and incident and came back in at the end of lap six, Reid was sitting in a healthy ninth place when he crashed out at the fast Stirling corner, thankfully rider and bike were both relatively unscathed.
Andy said "I've really enjoyed this weekend I'm just totally gutted that I crashed out. It was a big step up for me from a 125 but I've learnt so much and really gained a lot of experience from the whole weekend. The team and the mechanics put in so much hard work this weekend and I just wanted to repay them with a decent result. I'm really gutted as I was in a decent position and loved riding the bike."
Josh Wainwright managed to qualify in 13th place and gained a place after the opening lap; the safety car allowed the riders to bunch together Josh took advantage of this and was soon making up places once the car came back in the pits. The Kent rider was soon in a top ten position and battling for eighth place; he was setting some really strong lap times towards the end of the race and brought the Aye Gee Suzuki home in eighth place.
Josh said "Despite all the problems we've had this weekend I'm really pleased to have gained a top ten result as after Friday I didn't think we'd even be out on the grid. The guys worked all through the night last night and I really appreciate everything they have done for me and I hope that we can continue to keep getting good results for the rest of the season and get the bikes fully sorted out. It was a tough race but things really gelled together in the closing stages."
