Gearlink Kawasaki News

It was a fantastic weekend at the opening round of the MCE British Superbike Championship for the Gearlink Kawasaki team. We were making our debut in the British Superbike class with Ben Wilson, and what a debut, with two superb results, fourth in race one and tenth in the second race.

In the Motorpoint British Supersport Championship, Glenn Irwin took a fantastic maiden win first time out with the team and a solid fifth place in the second race. Luke Hedger in his first season riding a Supersport bike gained a strong fifth place in his first race but unfortunately crashed out in race two.

For the Gearlink team running the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R Superbike ia a brand new experience and with no prevous data for any of the tracks each visit presents a new challenge. Finding the right set up was a struggle during the practice sessions, however, qualifying in the very wet conditions proved to be more positive as Ben went through all three sessions to qualify in a very creditable seventh position on the grid for the first race. In the race he achieved one of his trademark fast starts and by turn one was in third place. Unfortunately, the race was red flagged but in the re run Ben again got off to a flying start before finally finishing in a fantastic fourth place. The second race was more challenging but he still finished in a creditable tenth place. With these two great results Ben is lying sixth in the Championship.

Glenn Irwin in the Motorpoint British Supersport Championship rode well all weekend puting the Kawasaki ZX-6R in pole position for the first race. He battled hard in a closely fought race to achieve the team's opening win in the Championship and his first win on a Supersport bike. Luke Hedger rode a great first race to finish in a strong fifth position. It was mixed bag for the second race with Glenn riding a mature race to gain more points finishing in fifth place and securing second place for the team in the Championship. Luke unfortunately crashed out while having another strong race.

Team Manager Michael de Bidaph - "It was an amazing weekend and an amazing start for us. We had a lot of problems in Superbike testing with Ben so he has not had much track time at all or to get a feeling for the Kawasaki Superbike. As the weekend progressed we, very quickly found a good set up in the dry and in the wet and this showed from the results we were able to achieve in the races. The majority of the credit this weekend goes to Ben, he dug deep and proved what an awesome rider he is to have little testing and still be able to run with the big boys.

The Superport boys had a fantastic weekend also, Glenn rode a very mature first race and we are delighted he was able to take his debut Supersport win on a Gearlink Kawasaki. We knew it would be tough in the second race but he was clever and took some very strong Championship points. Luke has stepped up into Supersport well and his first race result of fifth place was great. He was trying hard in the second race when he was unlucky to crash out but he is ok and was pushing hard.

We are really happy with how things went this weekend and hope it will carry on for the rest of the season. The entire Gearlink team have worked really hard over the winter and especially this weekend and i thank everyone for that including the riders"