The weekend was a tough one for the Fleetwood-based squad as Mackenzie and team-mate Jason O’Halloran initially struggled to find their feet with the 2020 YZF-R1 at the fast Norfolk circuit.

Working away, the riders found a feeling with the bike and made clear steps as the weekend progressed – halving the gap to the leader from the first to the second race, in which Mackenzie and O’Halloran repeated their seventh and eighth placed finishes from Saturday, before joining the fight for the win in the third race.

With pace to match the leaders in Race 2, Mackenzie’s lap time earned him a fifth place start for the third and final outing and despite losing a few places on the start, the Scotsman progressed back through the pack to join the seven bike battle for the lead.

At two thirds distance, Mackenzie looked to make a move for the podium fight, passing Kawasaki’s Lee Jackson with confidence he looked up the inside of Ducati’s Tommy Bridewell for fourth, but an out-of-the-seat moment saw him move back to sixth.

O’Halloran’s third race pace was also impressive with the Aussie matching the leaders’ times throughout. However, luck was not on his side as he had to leave the track to avoid Ryan Vickers’ crash in the early stages. Making up time, he’d almost catch the leading group but the race was a few laps too short for the 32-year-old.

A decent points’ haul across the weekend sees O’Halloran remain fifth in the championship standings, 53 points off the top but 30 off second place while Mackenzie’s performance sees him sit nine points behind his team-mate in seventh.

The shortened 2020 series resumes at Silverstone between 4th and 6th September.


Tarran Mackenzie - Race 2 - 7th : Race 3 - 6th

“It was nice to be in the front group for the first time this year! I’m really happy with how the weekend went, it was tough at times but we came into the weekend with a very different set-up to what we ran at Donington. It was a bit of a gamble and it took me a bit of time to get used to it as the weekend went on and fine tune things a little bit. Each race we got a bit closer and starting from the second row in the last race we were in the front group for the whole race. At one point I had a little go at trying to make some moves and go forwards but I nearly crashed so I settled back into my rhythm and stayed with them and tried to see if I could get back past but the opportunity wasn’t there. I’m really happy I could stay with them, back at the sharp end which is really nice as that puts us in good stead for Silverstone. I have a good feeling with the bike now so I can’t wait.”

Jason O'Halloran - Race 2 - 8th : Race 3 - 7th

“The final race was a struggle. It always is when you start in the middle of the grid, we were on the fourth row and if you start back there unfortunately when stuff happens in the middle of the pack it’s easy to get caught up in it. I got caught up in Ryan’s crash and ran off the track and I came back on and the changes we made to the bike were a good step forward. I felt comfortable and everything was working really well, I started to catch the group ahead but it was obviously a big task coming where we’d come from. I kept the speed all the way until the end and I wasn’t far off the leading group so I’m happy, the bike feels great and we now head to Silverstone where we were really strong last year.”

Steve Rodgers - Team Principal

“Motorcycle racing is never easy or simple and this weekend has been a bit of a tough one for the team. For whatever reason we were lacking a little bit throughout practice and qualifying, but the team put their heads together and each race we made a clear step, cutting the gap to the leader significantly and in the end Taz was able to fight with the leading group and Jason’s pace was quick enough to be there too if he hadn’t got caught up in another rider’s crash.

“On tough weekends it is very easy to walk away with no points, so to take away a decent chunk of points for both riders was important here, especially in a year when every point counts with no Showdown and a shorter season. Now we head to Silverstone, a track we know we can be strong at so we need to make sure we are in the best possible position for that.”