Tommy Hill put in another pair of solid results onboard his Virgin Media Optoma Loans Yamaha at Mondello Park, Ireland, in round six of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship today (June 17).
The 22 year old from Lingfield in Surrey, posted two top ten finishes scoring more valuable points to elevate him in to eighth place in the fiercely competitive championship. Tommy fought for a higher place in race one but could not match the pace of the others in the closing laps, finishing in tenth place. Race two saw Tommy in a similar position fighting for sixth mid way through the race. Caught by Leon Camier and Tom Sykes in the latter stages, Tommy had to settle for ninth, however his consistent points finishes rewarded him with a promotion in the Championship table.
Team-mate, Hudson Kennaugh's first permanent ride on the Pirelli shod YZF-R1 bought him mixed fortunes. The young South African rider maximised his 19th place starting position to finish a respectable 13th in race one. However the luck of the Irish was not on Hudson's side in race two when he fell victim to Aaron Zanotti crashing in front of him. Unable to avoid the unfortunate Zanotti, Hudson collided with him and his stricken machine bringing an abrupt end to his race. Despite the Safety Car being deployed, both riders walked away unscathed.
Tommy Hill: "It's been a frustrating weekend, all our practice and qualifying was in the wet so we'd had no dry track time until today. Obviously I'm glad to be moving up the championship table, I'd just like to have scored higher up in the races."
British Supersport - Red Flags dominate race proceedings:Pole sitter, Billy McConnell capitalised on his front row start to get away in third place with Dennis Hobbs leading, chased by championship leader Michael Laverty in what was to become a two-part British Supersport race. McConnell maintained his third place until an incident involving Robert Lanigan bought the Safety Car out on to the circuit, the incident was deemed to unsafe to continue and the race was red flagged. Team-mate, Tom Grant was running in eight place and had just been caught by a hard charging Ian Lowry who had started from 20th position before the stoppage.
The nine lap race re-start was Red Flagged on the opening lap after a crash involving three riders.
With the race finally underway for the third time in the day, Billy fought his way from fourth to third in the opening laps, battling hard with Michael Laverty for second position. With under a second between them, McConnell made a move on Laverty at Turn 7 leaving them both running off the circuit. Re-joining the race, Billy managed to salvage his way back to 20th position with the less fortunate Laverty out of the race shortly after he re-joined.
Tom Grant rode a hard race to secure sixth place and bag himself some more Championship points leaving him only one point and one place behind his Virgin Media Yamaha ally in seventh place.
Tom Grant: "It's been a hard weekend for me here, I have never ridden at Mondello before as the Virgin Media Cup doesn't come here. I'd also never ridden on wets but our Pirelli's did us proud to put us first and second on the grid. Ideally I'd of liked to turn my grid position in to a podium but it was not meant to be today for me."
Rob McElnea, Team Principal: "What an eventful weekend it's been for everyone there's been a lot of incidents causing stoppages. As a team, we struggled to get a good dry set-up in the limited time available, this has reflected on our results. We look ahead to Knockhill to turn this weekend around, although we have picked up more championship points and places we really want to be getting consistent podiums."
British Superbike Race One:1 - Leon Haslam (Ducati)
2 - Shane Byrne (Honda)
3 - Gregorio Lavilla (Ducati)
4 - Jonathan Rea (Honda)
5 - Ryuichi Kiyonari (Honda)
6 - Karl Harris (Honda)
10 - TOMMY HILL (VIRGIN MEDIA OPTOMA LOANS YAMAHA)
13 - HUDSON KENNAUGH (VIRGIN MEDIA OPTOMA LOANS YAMAHA)
British Superbike Race 2:1 - Jonathan Rea (Honda)
2 - Shane Byrne (Honda)
3 - Gregorio Lavilla (Ducati)
4 - Leon Haslam (Ducati)
5 - Ryuichi Kiyonari (Honda)
6 - Leon Camier (Honda)
9 - TOMMY HILL (VIRGIN MEDIA OPTOMA LOANS YAMAHA)
DNF - HUDSON KENNAUGH (VIRGIN MEDIA OPTOMA LOANS YAMAHA)
Bennetts British Superbike - Championship Standings:1 - Kiyonari 204
2- Lavilla 186
3- Rea 171
4 - Haslam 159,
5 - Camier 116,
8 - Hill 76
British Supersport:1 - Dennis Hobbs (Honda)
2 - Jamie Robinson (Honda)
3 - Ian Lowry (Suzuki)
4 - John McGuinness (Honda)
5 - Stuart Easton (Kawasaki)
6 - Tom Grant (Virgin Media Yamaha)
20 - Billy McConnell (Virgin Media Yamaha)
British Supersport Championship Standings:1 - Hobbs 91
2 - Lowry 81
3 - Laverty 77
4 - Robinson 58
5 - McGuinness 41
6 - McConnell 38
7 - Grant - 37
Virgin Media Optoma Loans Yamaha riders will be heading to Knockhill in Scotland for round seven over the weekend of 29 June - I July. Entering in to the spirit of the pre- event publicity, the team will attend the ‘Superbikes in the Square' event in Glasgow on Wednesday 27 June ahead of the race weekend.
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