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Points for Ollie, Pain for Tommy... |
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Tuesday, 19 June 2007 |
Team NB racing brothers Ollie and Tommy Bridewell experienced contrasting fortunes when round six of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship took place at Mondello Park in County Kildare at the weekend.
Fresh from a brilliant start to the season, both of the riders from Etchilhampton near Devizes in Wiltshire were hoping to continue their good form on their respective Suzukis and arrived at the Irish circuit in good spirits.
Qualifying went well for 21 year Ollie who managed to post a row three
start, just ahead of ex champion Gregorio Lavilla, but for 18 year old
Tommy, a crash on Friday had hindered his progress and he was forced to
start from row seven of the grid.
In the opening race, Ollie and Tommy were battling for the lower
leaderboard points when Tommy high-sided, crashing spectacularly out of
13th place and to compound the misery for the team, Ollie suffered an
engine failure whilst holding 11th just five laps from home.
With a battered and bruised Tommy unfit to take his place on the grid
for race two, it was left to Ollie to uphold family and team honours
and after a race long battle, was unlucky just to miss out on a top ten
placing, eventually finishing in 11th place.
“We struggled with grip all weekend long, but it was a compromise and
we did the best we could” said Ollie. “Overall, it wasn’t too bad but
I’m disappointed that I retired in race one and missed out on a top ten
in race two but we now move on to Knockhill and look to score more
points there.”
“I was lucky to get away with so few injuries after crashing out” said
Tommy. “I’m sore all over and going for a check up to make sure nothing
is broken but I hope to be back at Knockhill. We need to work on the
set up and to optimise the grip and once we have that sorted, we can
improve.”
As a result of the weekend’s events, Ollie moved ahead of his sibling
into 14th in the overall points standings with Tommy just a point
adrift in 15th going into the next round at Knockhill in two weeks
time.
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