KUBA Smrz is refusing to let the small matter of a dramatic crash and fire this afternoon ruin his hopes ahead of tomorrow’s two MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship races at Silverstone.

The Splitlath Redmond rider was gutted to miss out on final qualifying after crashing his Aprilia during the final few minutes of Qualifying Two today, ruling him out of the rest of the session.

But he is determined to make amends tomorrow as he starts the opening race from 11th spot on the grid.

Kuba had been lying in eighth place with just over three and a half minutes of QP2 to run when he crashed out at Stowe, seconds after Danny Buchan’s MSS Bathams Kawasaki had stopped with a technical problem in the same spot.

“I had just made a good first lap in Qualifying Two but then breaking into Stowe I lost the front. I crash and then the bike was on fire,” he explained.

“I do not know if there was oil down on the track or not. I could see the other bike was there but I do not know if it had dropped oil and that is what made me crash, or whether I crashed on my own.”

Although unhurt, the bike was badly damaged and the team was this evening preparing to work late into the night to get it ready for him tomorrow.

“It was not possible to continue, the bike was very badly damaged and I am sorry for the team for giving them so much work to do tonight. Until then we were doing well.

“We have been improving so much over the weekend, yesterday we were stronger and this morning we were very close to the top. I thought we could’ve had another good qualifying but unfortunately it did not happen today.

“The team have been great and have worked so hard and the bike is working really well now. I hope we can get everything fixed and ready so we can carry on the good work tomorrow.”

Team-mate Troy Herfoss had a tricky afternoon where he missed much of Qualifying One with a technical problem.

He managed to get a handful of laps in and will start from 28th on the grid for tomorrow’s opening race, but plans to push hard to get a better grid spot for the second.

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