Samsung Honda celebrated a double podium finish at the second round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship at Thruxton today, with Alex Lowes securing a second and third place in the two races. His team-mate Ryuichi Kiyonari meanwhile had a more challenging weekend finishing 17th in race one and crashing out unhurt in race two.

In race one Lowes battled hard with the front runners, snatching the lead in the early stages of the race before Shane Byrne and Josh Brookes moved ahead. He eventually took a solid third place. In the second outing, Lowes was pushing for the lead when the race was red flagged due to an incident and he was forced to settle for second place. Kiyonari endured a tough weekend as he secured 17th in race one and crashed out unhurt on the opening lap of race two.

In the Motorpoint British Supersport Championship Jason O'Halloran scored two top-ten finishes with a sixth and seventh place. The Australian lost some positions at the start of the race, which meant he had to push hard to make up the time; something that the team and Jason will focus on for Oulton Park.

Havier Beltran – Team Manager

Alex had another two cracking good rides; he used his head to achieve two podiums despite difficult qualifying and limited practice time. I’m really pleased with his progress so credit to him for his focus. Kiyo has had a bad weekend. It is clear that he is not happy with the chassis set-up direction and he doesn't like the new engine specification and performance. We have some testing before Oulton Park so we have to work hard to get him back on track. In Supersport Jason had two good rides, though giving away too much in the first few corners made it a harder race for him, but he has the pace and that’s something that we can work on.


Alex Lowes

I’ve taken four podium finishes so far and although it wasn’t a win it’s been consistent. It’s nice to get these results here, I’m really happy and these races were very fun. I pushed until the end of the first race; I knew it was going to be difficult. I had a good start to try and get away and then we had a close race right until the end. I was disappointed to be at the back of the three of us. It was hard work; the front was sliding, the rear was sliding, but it was great fun. We made a few changes for the second race and they were good. It has been a good weekend and I can’t wait for Oulton Park.

Ryuichi Kiyonari

I’m very disappointed – this has been a very difficult weekend. We didn’t have much practice and like at Brands Hatch I had problems which we tried to improve. The first race was my mistake, not the bike, and then in the second race I crashed. I highsided, tried to catch it, but went down. Now we have to improve in the next round at Oulton Park – that is not an easy track but we’ll try very hard.

Jason O’Halloran

Race one was good and we made a good step forward but lost too much time and places on the opening lap. In the second race we made another step forward and I felt I had good enough pace to be battling for the podium but again I lost too much time on the opening lap. I gave myself a lot of work to do. I think we still need to improve my feeling with the bike on the opening two laps but other than that my team gave me a great bike today. From Brands Hatch we have moved forward and I'm sure we will continue to do so at the next round.

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