Home Win for Airwaves Yamaha
08.08.09
Leon Camier today increased his lead in the British Superbike Championship to 90.5 points, winning the opening race of Round 8. Finishing 6th, James Ellison increased his points total to 234.
Earlier in the day Leon secured his 6th pole position of the season with a time of 1:26.860. From the number one spot, Leon produced one of his best starts of the year to slot into 3rd. James initially got away well to fight alongside his teammate into the first corner. However, by the end of lap 1, James found himself back in 6th. After making up a place, Leon quickly chased down Broc Parkes, the Kawasaki World Superbike Wild Card rider. James meanwhile became involved in a 6-way battle. On lap 10 Leon took the lead going through on the inside of Druids, eventually taking the chequered flag by nearly two seconds. James successfully managed to withhold a number of challenges to maintain his 6th place.
After race one James commented, "My start was pretty good but from the first lap I had a problem with the front end of the Airwaves Yamaha and lost some places. The problem seemed to get worse as the race went on but I kept pushing. I managed to start closing the gap to the rider in front, but I ran out of laps to do anything more. We've struggled after not doing any laps yesterday, but now we have a good amount of data to work with ahead of the two races tomorrow. I'm confident we'll see some big improvements and be back on form."
Firmly securing his place as GSE Racing's most successful rider, Leon was delighted to take his 12th victory of the season in front of his home crowd saying, "It's been a perfect day. The race was pretty hard. Broc Parkes managed to build a gap at the start and I had to push to catch him. It was really hot out there and pretty greasy so I had to focus on being smooth and not doing anything too aggressive. I didn't actually mean to pass him where I did, but I pulled it off. I then got my head down. I made a few small mistakes but luckily by that point I had a bit of a gap. It's feels fantastic to win at Brands Hatch today. We've got a lot of people here from GSE Group as it's their home track as well as mine. More of the same tomorrow would be great!"
Race Two is scheduled to commence tomorrow at 1300 and Race Three at 1630.
Race One Results:
1 Leon Camier – Airwaves Yamaha
2 Broc Parkes – Kawasaki World Superbike R.T.
3 Stuart Easton – Hydrex Honda
4 Karl Muggeridge – HM Plant Honda
5 Tommy Hill – Worx Crescent Suzuki
6 James Ellison – Airwaves Yamaha