Filip Backlund kept his championship challenge on track with a battling fifth place finish in the sixth round of the Pirelli National Superstock 1000 Championship at a sun-kissed Snetterton 300 circuit on Sunday. His team-mate Victor Cox claimed 14th place and two championship points to maintain his fifth place the championship.

Free practice saw Cox in 9th position as Backlund spent virtually the whole session in the pits with an oil leak on his Ninja ZX-10R and thus unable to put in a fast lap. The team as always sorted the problem to ensure that Filip's bike would be ready for the first qualifying session later in the day and also made a few small suspension changes to both rider's bikes.

The changes paid off with Victor going over half a second quicker and third fastest through the first sector speed trap, as Filip put down his first marker of the weekend to lap just under half a second slower than his team-mate to finish 13th quickest. Fastest through the Sector 1 speed trap, the second session however saw Cox lap slower to finish the session down in 20th place as Backlund improved by over half a second to post the 9th fastest time in the session.
All this meant that Filip would start the race from the third row of the grid with Victor just behind him on the fourth row.

With the temperatures already well into the 20's and the track temperature reaching 40°C for the morning warm-up session, the race was going to be a challenging one for the riders and this was the case as temperatures soared considerably at the Norfolk circuit as the day went on.


At the end of the opening lap of 14, Filip was up to eighth with Victor getting a slow start and finding himself down in 16th place and on the next lap both riders dropped one place to cross the line in 9th and 17th respectively. On the next lap Josh Day crashed out without injury as the safety car came out.

As the race resumed in earnest on the seventh lap, Dan Stewart found himself black flagged for failing to take a time penalty whilst at the front it was Adam Jenkinson from Tristan Palmer, Hudson Kennaugh, Lee Jackson, Jimmy Storrar, Lee Johnston, James East, Tommy Aquino and Backlund with Cox five places further back.

On the next lap Steve Mercer and Steve Brogan crashed at Montreal Hairpin as Filip became tangled in a battle for 8th place with Aquinio and Joe Burns. Victor meanwhile was embroiled in a large group of riders and still circulating in 14th place. On lap 9 Lee Johnston crashed out of fifth place and with four laps to go Backlund and Cox were still battling gamely for every crucial point as Hudson Kennaugh, who started the race on level points with Filip, took over the race lead.

With two laps to go, Filip moved into 7th position ahead of Aquino and Burns but Victor, who was also now involved in a three rider battle with Peter Ward and Kyle Wilks, suddenly found himself just outside the points in 16th. Like last year's race which was held in similar conditions, there were a high number of non-finishers and on the penultimate lap Jimmy Storrar joined that list as he too crashed out, again at Montreal.,
This moved Backlund up to 6th as Cox got ahead of Wilks and Ward to move into 14th. The final lap saw a close battle at the front with Kennaugh taking the race win from Jenkinson and Jackson as Filip got ahead and moved clear of James East to claim fifth with Victor holding on to 14th as Peter Ward crashed behind him at Murrays.

So a result which sees Filip drop down one place in the championship to fourth and losing some ground to race winner Hudson Kennaugh, but still very much in the mix-up for the championship. Victor meanwhile is one place and 20 points behind his team-mate in the standings, but with this ultra-competitive series only at the halfway point, there is still a lot to race for.



Pic by Jon Jessop
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