Heavy snow today at Brands Hatch led to the cancellation of the first round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship.
The weather took a turn for the worse in the morning at around 7am before the day’s schedule had even begun. With heavy snow falling, by 11.15am the decision was taken by race control in concert with circuit owners/promoters MotorSport Vision to cancel the day’s proceedings and re-schedule the race weekend for 10th-11th May.
The decision was disappointing to the many thousands of fans who had braved the conditions to watch the races, but all involved in the Championship agreed that the decision was the correct one for riders’ safety.
Leon Haslam – HM Plant Honda
British Superbike – Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade
“It’s gutting not to race, especially so for the fans as so many have turned up – despite the awful conditions. You’ve got to applaud them for that! We’ve got to take some positives from the weekend and we can go away from Brands Hatch knowing that we’ve made a lot of progress with the new CBR1000RR Fireblade. We now just need to get the event and hopefully the bad weather behind us and look forward to the next event at Thruxton.”
Cal Crutchlow – HM Plant Honda
British Superbike – Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade
“This is such a disappointment – we all wanted to race today – but we all understand why the decision has been made and it’s for the right reasons. This is the UK, not Spain so the weather can generally be pretty unpredictable, as we saw at the official BSB test at Snetterton. One thing I wanted to mention is the fans – they’ve been great and to turn out in this sort of number in these conditions is just awesome. So many of them are wearing helmets, so they have turned up on bikes too – they’re a lot braver than I am! We’ve still been out in the garage signing things for them and I want to thank them all for turning up.”
Steve Brogan – Honda (UK) Racing
British Supersport – Honda CBR600RR
British Superstock – Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade
“All I can do is echo what Cal and Leon have said – it’s a big disappointment for us all and sad for everyone who wanted to see some racing here at Brands Hatch today. Obviously with the Superstock Fireblade we were on pole and we were looking good for the race and with the CBR600RR in Supersport I was confident we could have been up there as well. You can see from the conditions that the decision is the right one, which is just too bad, but we’ll look towards Thruxton now.”
Havier Beltran – HM Plant Honda Team Manager
“It’s unfortunate across the board today for anyone involved in the Bennetts British Superbike series: whether you’re a rider, a fan, a team manager, a sponsor, anyone. We all want to see some racing but all morning we’ve seen the conditions worsen and we’ve had sponsors who’ve been stuck in traffic not able to get here. The conditions have been so bad that for some of our guests travelling towards Brands it’s taken them an hour to travel five miles. This decision hasn’t been taken lightly, but it is the correct one when you have the riders’ safety at heart.”
Jonathan Palmer – Chief Executive, MotorSport Vision
“It is bitterly disappointing for all the fans who have come and of course for all the teams and organisations including the Brands Hatch team who have put so much into this weekend. Apart from the inability to put on the great show fans expected from BSB, safety is our number one priority and this must not be compromised. Fortunately a major benefit of MSV now running BSB is that following a review of our calendar, I am delighted to be able to immediately announce that we have re-scheduled this meeting which will now take place on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit on 10th-11th May. All race-day weekend and grandstand tickets will be valid for the new date at no extra charge. The grids for all the races within the BSB programme will be as set yesterday on 5th April. The 10th-11th May date was scheduled to be a BMCRC meeting and some races from this will be incorporated into the BSB event.”
