Josh Elloitt takes a corner hard at Brands Hatch
Brands Hatch circuit in Kent brought the curtain down on the 2014 British Superbike Championship last weekend and Fermanagh man Josh Elliott was one of the front runners yet again as his positive end of season form continued.
Changeable weather conditions on day one saw the 20-year-old miss all but a sighting lap of free practice as the damp track was too sketchy to push.
Despite this he had a stunning performance in first qualifying later that day recording the fourth fastest time and a personal best for him by a half a second.
The weather played havoc the following day with another wet, damp track for final qualifying thus no one could improve on their times.
The upside was that Elliott was confirmed starting from the front of the second row but with no wet set up, he took to the track in the short evening ‘warm up’ session in damp conditions.
This identified issues with the front end of his Kawasaki machine which his team tried to address overnight in case the following race day was wet.
With a new wet setting and tyres fitted the following morning the track started to dry out.
Within 15 minutes of race start Elliott’s crew made the call to run with dry tyres and hastily prepared his machine. As parts of the circuit were still damp they compromised on a partial dry suspension setting and sent him out for his sighting lap.
Elliott got a good start, immediately slotted into fourth position and made a daring move for third soon after. He looked comfortable and the pace was good until being touched by another bike and partially run off the dry line which lost him a few places. He again settled back in and tried to make progress but as the race wore on the slightly softer settings began to hurt the bike’s performance and leave it difficult to control.
He slipped back to sixth and fought bravely to grab fifth at the end but it wasn’t to be. Regardless, a solid 10 points in the bag and securing sixth place in the championship was a very creditable result for the season and an improvement of 15 places over 2013.
“It was a challenging race from the start in rather tricky conditions,” said Elliott. “But I was happy to get enough points to secure sixth place position in the championship. To have had the package to allow me challenge the big teams in this championship has been a great confidence boost for me and I go into the winter break really motivated to go for wins next year.
“Massive thanks to my GA Racing – Socialites E Cig team and all my sponsors who have supported me so well this season and have overcome many challenges to allow me be competitive.”
