Gearlink Kawasaki News

The team were once again back on the the podium at round ten of the Motorpoint British Supersport Championship at Assen Circuit with Glenn Irwin. Glenn finished a strong fifth in the Sprint race and followed it with a a great third place in the feature race. Ben Wilson had another consisstent weekend with seventh and sixth places, unfortunatley Luke Hedger crashed out of race one but managed to achieve ninth place in the second race.

Glenn was eager to return to the podium and worked hard all weekend and despite poor weather put in consistent lap times to qualify in sixth place for the opening race. He had a steady start and as the race progressed was locked in a battle for second place with four other riders. Every lap they were swapping positions in a thrilling race with Glenn making a fantastic move on the last lap to go into second place only to then make a mistake dropping him to fifth place as they crossed the finishing line.

For race two he was placed fourth on the grid and managed to get a brilliant start to be in second place at the end of lap one. The safety car was deployed on lap two following an accident. Glenn was passed by the eventual winner which dropped him back to third place which he continued to fight for until the end of the race.

Ben continued his recent form and qualified in difficult conditions in ninth place for the first race. He got a good start and was setting some good lap times to finish in a solid seventh place. For race two he started from seventh on the grid finishing in a very strong sixth place.

Luke once again was having a consistently strong weekend setting times placing him in the top ten in each of the practice and qualifying sessions. He started in seventh place on the grid for race one but was unfortunate to crash out in lap three. For race two he was on the grid in eighth place and following a poor start managed to bring the bike home in a creditable ninth place despite some problems which were as a result of the crash in race one.

It was another learning weekend in the MCE British Superbkie Championship for Jed Metcher riding the team's Kawasaki ZX-10R. He continued to improve throughout the weekend but sadly had to retire in race one with a technical problem. In race two, the conditions were mixed and after several delays the race was declared wet. The team took a gamble with full intermediate tyres which in the opening laps was perfect. Jed worked his way through the field and by lap six was in tenth place. However, as the track started to dry his tyres went off dropping him back to finish in 18th place.

Team Manager Michael de Bidaph - "We have to take the positives from the weekend and a podium with Glenn is brilliant. It was unfortunate that he did not achieve two but by his own admission it was his mistake in race one. In the Supersport races we got a good selection of top ten results with all three riders. We have made some progress this weekend and hope it will continue until the rest of the season.

We are happy with what Jed has been achieving on the Superbike and he continues to improve every time he goes out on it. We took a gamble with the tyres in the second race and if the conditions had stayed wet a little longer the gamble would have paid off. He was riding well and we will look to keep moving forward at the final two rounds of the Championship."