It was another difficult weekend for the Halsall Biker Gear Kawasaki team at the 11th round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship. Despite achieving the team’s best qualifying of the season on Saturday, Jon Kirkham left Silverstone with just one point from Sunday’s two races.

The team had high hopes for the first race starting from the second row of the grid in fourth position and Kirkham got off to a strong start to lead what became an eight rider freight train for fifth. Dan Linfoot came past on the fourth lap demoting Jon to sixth but as he tried to fight back, his ZX10-R cut out on him forcing him to retire from the race.

The early retirement left him 15th on the grid for the afternoon’s second race but struggling with a lack of rear grip, things didn’t come together for the Derby rider who brought his Halsall Biker Gear Kawasaki home to take the final point in fifteenth place.

Jon Kirkham:

“What can I say? We had a technical issue in race one which was disappointing as we were in a good battle but I wasn’t completely happy with the set-up. We changed a few things for the second race and also ran a different rear tyre but things didn’t improve, I had a bad feeling with the front suspension and no grip at all at the rear. It’s disappointing, everyone is working so hard but it’s not happened for another weekend on the bounce. Brands Hatch should be easier as we have been there before and have somewhere to work from with the bike.”

Jack Valentine, Team Manager:

“I don’t know what to say. It was similar to Assen, we qualified well and then couldn’t capitalise on the position. Unfortunately in the first race we experienced an electrical issue, the data showed a fault in the main wiring loom so we had to change it for the second race. Before that he was hanging in there in contention for fifth place and we were quite optimistic. From Jon’s feedback we made a few changes for the second race and although he replicated the times from free practice on a couple of laps it never came together. We’re looking forward to getting to Brands Hatch now, we’ve been there with Jon before so have data for the bike and we’re confident of getting back on track.”

The Halsall Biker Gear Kawasaki squad will be back in action at the final round of the 2014 MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch on 17/18/19 October.

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