Tommy Bridewell holds a slender three-point advantage over his BeerMonster Ducati teammate at the top of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship ahead of Knockhill next weekend (June 16/17/18) as he bids to extend his points lead in the standings.
Bridewell celebrated a win at Oulton Park for round two and last time out at Donington Park he claimed a pair of second place finishes to fire himself marginally ahead of Glenn Irwin, but with just ten points covering the top five in the standings, the championship leader knows he cannot afford to give an inch.
The BeerMonster Ducati team took part in a single day test at Knockhill ahead of the next races in Scotland, with Bridewell happy that the work completed will stand them in good stead for next weekend.
Bridewell said: “Donington Park was a really positive weekend again, for us I guess I always look at the positives. The one negative was that we had a great opportunity to extend our championship lead by a good amount but unfortunately, a technical issue out of our hands put us out of the second race whilst we were leading. That aside, Donington Park has always been a really strong circuit, but also a really weak circuit for my riding for some reason, so I think to come away from that weekend again shows the strength that we have taken with the bike. To be able to get two seconds was positive for sure.
“Also to be the only one to really be able to match what Kyle was able to do on the Yamaha. We know where our weaknesses are at Donington Park. Now I am looking forward to analysing that and getting the rest of the season underway before we go back there, because we have a really obvious area where we are weak, and I feel that if we can fix that, it will really make us that little bit stronger again. That was a good weekend.
“The Knockhill test was positive, but it was tricky really as it was a day of two weathers in truth. We only did the one day, and by the time I got back up to speed and got my head around Knockhill, the weather really sky rocketed and the track temperature was through the roof, so the track was quite greasy.
“All in all, it was still positive as we were bang on pace and the main thing for us was to get as many laps under our belt so that our side of the team, me and Paulo, could analyse the data over the break to come back stronger for the race weekend. So it was really an exercise to collect data and information for suspension, for tyre life, for all of it so hopefully that has ticked those boxes.
“Going into the weekend, it is fairly obvious that Knockhill can be hard to make the passes; so we really need to focus on making the bike strong for one lap, which hasn’t been our weakness but it is something that we can improve.
“I think for me, Knockhill is crucial to really maximise the potential for one lap in qualifying, put ourselves ideally on the front row and worst case, on the second row, and take the race from there. I feel that we have good potential there and a good opportunity to do a good weekend, so we just need to let it play out and go from there. The goal is always to extend the championship lead and that is definitely something that I will be looking to do.”