Peter Hickman's championship hopes have been dented after a poor weekend at Snetterton. The Tyco Honda rider entered the event inside the top six in the standings but a solitary tenth place finish has seen him drop out of that crucial bracket.
The top six riders after round nine at Cadwell Park will contest the British Superbike crown over the final three events, and a crankshaft sensor failure sidelined him for the restarted second race, costing him that sixth place to Josh Brookes.
“It's a real shame because we had improved the bike for race two and I felt pretty confident I could go better than the tenth place I scored in race one. But that's how it goes sometimes.”
In the mirror.co.uk EVO class, Patric Muff did provide some cheer for the Quay Garage team with two solid results. The Swiss rider followed up his fifth place in race one with fourth in race two and the Swiss rider was particularly proud of his performance in the second race of the day.
“I'm really happy with my second race today. It's like every weekend so far, it's always a new track for me but we keeping working away and gradually improve the lap times all weekend. Now I'm looking forward to going to Oulton Park in two weeks time because it's a track we've raced on earlier in the season.”
All in all though, the Tyco Honda squad had a difficult weekend and Team Owner Ian Woollacott was left to rue what might have been. Woollacott has also stressed the importance of a return to form at Oulton Park in two weeks.
“It's been a disappointing weekend and we didn't get the results we had anticipated. Patric rode well again but he was struggling for drive grip in both races, but then I think everyone did this weekend. Peter's downfall was qualifying so he had to start from the fourth row. He looked set to build on his first race tenth until the technical failure.
“We'll regroup and go to Oulton Park in two weeks. Peter has slipped outside the top six cut-off for the Showdown that decides the title, so we need some big points from him to claw his way back into contention. And it's going to be interesting to see how Patric fares on the circuit he's already had previous racing experience on.”
