Peter Hickman scored a brace of 12th places in round two of the 2016 MCE British Superbike championship at Oulton Park in torrid conditions on Monday.

The weather threw everything it could at the riders all over the weekend with snow, hail, rain and strong winds plus sub zero temperatures at night. 

The Louth based rider never got the chance to get a feel for the bike in the inclement conditions and this reflected in his lap times during free practice.

The second session was run in the wet and as Hicky was on a fast lap and set to take pole he was unfortunate to encounter a technical problem and was seen to slow and stop at Druids to sit out the rest of the session.

A new engine was fitted prior to the final test session and Hicky took it relatively steady to make sure the engine was run in before posting a couple of fast laps to end the session in 16th place.

Going into the three stage qualifying session on Sunday afternoon Hicky made it through to stage two where he finished in 14th place which was not quite fast enough to take part in the chase for pole. He was to start race one on Monday from the middle of the fifth row.

Disappointed to be in 14th, Peter Hickman still felt confident of two good races on Sunday and said: 

“Yeah, that wasn’t the best session result wise but the bike is still feeling good. I just couldn’t quite get my head in gear and wasn’t feeling 100% confident – the lack of track time from yesterday didn’t help. That said, the weekend as a whole has been pretty good and in the dry yesterday we were running at a strong pace and if it wasn’t for the technical problem it would have been an easy top six. We’ve got a few things to try tomorrow in warm up and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in tomorrow’s races!”

But as the Lincolnshire rider lined up on the grid for the start of race one on Monday the track was wet from a heavy shower of rain which made tyre choice an issue. As the race got underway Hicky got a fantastic start and was up to ninth position on the first lap but as the race unfolded he dropped back to 13th before passing Lee Jackson on the penultimate lap to secure 12th place at the flag.

The weather was still causing problems for the second race and this time Hicky didn’t get the best of starts being 21st on the first lap. But he got stuck in and began to chip away at the riders ahead passing James Rispoli and then Tom Bridewell mid race to take up 14th place. One lap later he passed Luke Mossey and could see Lee Jackson some distance ahead. He pushed hard and finally caught and passed him on the last lap to cross the finish line for 12th place once again.

Disappointed not to be able to replicate his pace from Silverstone Hicky said: 

“I’ll be honest; this has been a really disappointing weekend. On Saturday, during the dry practice we were comfortably running top six and I believe we had the pace today to have been challenging for the podium if conditions were better. In the wet today I just couldn’t get the laps together or get going quick enough – but then as the track dried out in that last race I was one of the quickest guys on circuit for the last few laps.

As we proved last time out two 12th positions is not where the team, the bike or I should be. We’ll be back at Brands though ready to make amends!”

Hicky now prepares to travel to Northern Ireland where he will race in the North West 200 races on May 14. He made his debut at the venue in 2014 but missed last year because of injury.



Courtesy of Helen Pask


Press Officer
Peter Hickman Racing




Pic credit Dave Yeomans