The Swan Honda team returned to action today for the opening two free practice sessions for the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship at Silverstone with Stuart Easton and James Ellison ending the day thirteenth and fourteenth respectively.

The conditions have been changeable throughout the day and in this morning’s wet opening session Ellison was seventh fastest and this afternoon both riders continued to work through various changes in a bid to be able too challenge for the front row in tomorrow’s Swan Combi Roll for Pole.

Easton said:

“If you look at the position we have finished today then it doesn’t look great, but in fact it has been a very productive day for us and we have made some good progress which hopefully will be reflected tomorrow. It is a long lap around here so the gap we have at the moment doesn’t worry me as I wasn’t pushing too hard today. I am still feeling good and confident after the performances we had at Croft and we were always going to be a little behind today as the other riders have already done some laps of the track; I think tomorrow could be a different story. Overall I am satisfied with how today has worked out and I think we have the potential to be up there and fighting again on Sunday.”

Ellison said:

“This morning felt really good and I was running inside the top five when I came back in the garage but then a few of the other riders had a last run and I dropped to seventh. That didn’t faze me as I knew if we had put new rubber in we could have gone quicker again. The second free practice was in the dry and we used a similar setting to Croft, compared to what we ran at a recent track day at Silverstone. However we have spent some time looking at the data and we are feeling positive that we know the direction we need to work towards tomorrow before qualifying.”