Tommy Bridewell scored a tenth place finish on his Bennetts Suzuki debut, and despite a tricky opening weekend to the 2016 MCE British Superbike season, the team has taken plenty of positives from the opening round at Silverstone.

The team reported making good progress with its GSX-R1000 machinery despite the mixed conditions and despite having ambitions of higher placed finishes, both Bridewell and team-mate Ryuichi Kiyonari were still upbeat with the performance of the bike and the team, and the work carried out over the course weekend.

Race one saw Bridewell finish in tenth place and one position ahead of Kiyonari, who was pushing for a top seven finish before a mistake cost him time and positions. Unfortunately a tyre gamble in race two didn't pay off for Bridewell, who was unable to maintain his early pace for the full race distance and eventually dropped back to finish in 16th place, while Kiyonari rode to a 12th placed finish after struggling with chatter.

Bridewell said: 

"Well Silverstone didn't work as I'd hoped. With about nine laps to go the tyre just dropped off and was wheel-spinning all over the place. It was fun, but not ideal for going fast. It was good at the start and I felt good, but once it went off I couldn't keep the times up. The results aren't great and I am disappointed, but I can also feel the difference with the changes we've made in each session. The bike's feeling really good and I've felt good on it, but it just didn’t come together during the weekend. I'm looking forward to Oulton now and we'll go again from there."

Kiyonari said: 

"We struggled with some chatter, which mean I couldn't push as hard as I would have liked. In race one our times were still quite good and I could have had a seventh before I made a slight mistake. For race two we made some suspension changes to see if we could cure the chatter, but it didn't work as we would have liked. It was not a great weekend for the results, but I'm still positive and can feel the potential. Mid-corner and coming out of the corner the bike is really good. We need to work on being further up the grid at the start of the race, and once we have sorted the chatter issue I know we can run nearer the front."

Bennetts Suzuki Team Owner Martin Halsall commented: 

"The results haven't been great at Silverstone but I've never seen two riders so positive. The team and Tommy tried something in race two, but that didn't come off, but that's sometimes the way it goes. But over the course of the whole weekend he's worked hard to keep improving the bike, and the feeling he has is very good. It just didn’t happen for him at the weekend. But he'll come back stronger at Oulton.

"On Kiyo's side of the garage we had some issues with chatter, which we didn't have at Donington. Despite that he was still pushing on and it was looking like we'd get a good strong result from him in race one. It wasn't to be but his times and the gap to the leaders gave us plenty of positives to take. Race two wasn't so good, but that's racing and you have bad days. We'll go away and look at the data between now and the next round, and look for better results there."


The next round of the MCE British Superbike Championship takes place during the May Bank Holiday weekend at Oulton Park (April 30 - May 2),