Christian Iddon leads the Bennetts British Superbike Championship standings ahead of this weekend’s third round of the season at Brands Hatch, with a victory and a further three podium finishes, he holds a narrow six point edge over Jason O'Halloran.
Iddon added a second victory to his career tally at Knockhill last time out to claim the VisionTrack Ducati team their first win of the season, which he followed up with a pair of fourth places.
“It was definitely nice to win at Knockhill, not that I was surprised to win because I expect it, but I hadn’t felt that great on the bike all of that day, so it was a good start,” reflected Iddon. “Then when I watched the race back in the evening, I thought ‘yeah that was good’, and a strong start.
“On Sunday, it was obviously a bit different as we ended up with two fourths, which was disappointing really. In race two I lost the place to Tarran on the last lap, but what I should have done was be more aggressive and attacking, that might have held him off, that was my little error.
“In the last race I just fell afoul of the timing with the red flag, as Danny had just pushed me a bit wide and it just so happened the red flag came out, but by the way it happens, I wasn’t then in a podium position. That was frustrating as I felt that the race was coming to me a bit, even though I had just had the wrong end of the racing bit, I was getting ready for the last five lap battle, which I think would have been a good one.”
Iddon’s confidence is high; a trio of second places at the season opener, before victory at Knockhill puts him in a strong position and currently lead the charge for the title-defending team.
“I think I would have been on the podium in race three – it might be easy to say that once the race is done, maybe I wouldn’t have, but I definitely felt that I would have been somewhere on that box,” added Iddon. “That would have been nice to have come away with another trophy on the Sunday, but it was another strong performance and to be leading the championship is cool feeling.”
On the last visit to the Grand Prix circuit, Iddon twice claimed a podium finish, and only narrowly missed out on celebrating another, so is eager to maintain the form that edged him ahead at Knockhill.
“In all honestly and I know I say it a lot, I always approach every event the same – I just go out and give my best and hope that we have a good first free practice, as that always sets the stall out for the weekend really,” said Iddon. “By that I mean you can sometimes turn up to the track and feel the flow, but other times you don’t and you generally know within the first ten laps.
“I always hope I get that first good feeling, which so far we have done at events, and I know that the VisionTrack Ducati worked well at Brands Hatch last year and I believe that our set-up has improved since then. Even though we didn’t have anything new to try, we have a different set-up and that should be good at Brands Hatch too.
“Knockhill has never been too good to me in the past and this year it was reasonably good. Brands Hatch has been a reasonably strong circuit for me and I know from what Josh does there, that the bike is super competitive there. I also know that other riders have very competitive bikes there, like the Yam, and I expect a really strong weekend from Jason and probably more from Taz.
“But it is never easy - you never know what will happen until you get there and can never discount anyone, so I certainly won’t be doing any of that and there is no room for complacency. It can be only a moment in time that you’re in that position, so I am planning to keep it there for as long as possible.”