Christian Iddon finished in a solid eighth place in the second race at Brands Hatch yesterday, after charging through from 30th to 13th in the first race aboard his Bennetts Suzuki GSX-R1000.

After qualifying in 13th for round six of the MCE British Superbike championship, Iddon made a strong start in race one but was forced to take evasive action at Druids on lap one as three riders crashed out. He rejoined in last place and ended the first lap in 30th place. After catching and passing riders in front of him, Iddon pushed through and was involved in the battle for a top-10 position, but came away with 13th place for his efforts.

Starting from 13th again in race two, Iddon initially lost a couple of places on the opening lap, but soon made inroads into the top 10. Embroiled in the battle for sixth, he crossed the line in eighth place to score some solid championship points.

Christian Iddon:

"I wanted to go tight into Druids on the opening lap but my track position meant I was committed to the outside, and there's always a danger something can happen on the inside and sadly for us it did, and it forced me well off track. But I got my head down and got myself into a rhythm and pushed my way through. I got myself onto the back of the battle for ninth but I just couldn't work my way through the group, but 13th wasn't too bad after how far back I was on the first lap. In the second race I got boxed-in this time at Druids, but I every time I passed another rider I was able to focus on the next one and keep moving forward. At one point I ran wide at Graham Hill bend and allowed Luke Mossey back past, and after that I started to lose some grip on the front tyre. But we've made real progress with the bike and it performed really well this weekend. There's still things we need to improve such as our corner-entry speed, but the team has really made some big steps."

Josh Waters rode to 17th and 19th placed finishes in the weekend's two races, and while he made progress from his 25th placed qualifying position, the team is still working on finding the solution to a corner entry set-up issue that prevented the double Australian Superbike Champion from showing his true potential this weekend.

Josh Waters:

"It was a difficult weekend on our side of the garage. Everyone is putting in lots of hard work and I'm doing my best out there, we're just struggling with one key issue with our set-up that's holding me back from being able to ride the bike how I need to. The Yoshimura engines are working fantastically and we know what we and the bike are capable of, it's just a matter of finding the answer to the issue we're having. It's so competitive out there but we've made progress, and once we find the answer I know we'll be capable of far better results that we're achieving at the moment."

Jack Valentine - Team Manager:

"Christian got a good start in race one and I thought we were on for a good result, but obviously the drastic evasive action he had to take put paid to any hopes of that. However it was still an excellent ride from dead last to come through to take some points and be in the mix for a top-10 finish. In race two, after some of the luck we've had, I've never been so happy for an eighth place finish and it was good to be able to fight for sixth. If he hadn't made a small mistake and run off the track at Graham Hill bend then maybe we would have had that sixth place. But he did set the sixth fastest lap of the race, in traffic too, so we're taking the positives from that and we'll look to build on it at Thruxton.

"On Josh's side of the garage we're still looking for a solution to a chassis issue that's preventing him from being able to ride as he'd like to. Even though everyone has been working hard a quick fix eludes us. But we've far from given up hope and are sure we can give him a better ride at the next round. He's also off to race the Suzuka 8-Hour and we'll look to see if we can get some ideas from our friends in the Yoshimura Suzuki team, and we'll keep working here to find an answer."