New signing and championship debutant Filip Backlund got both his and ILR Kawasaki's season off to a great start when he finished second by just 0.06s in Sunday's first round of the Pirelli National Superstock 1000 Championship at Brands Hatch.

It was a remarkable performance from the 22 year old Swedish rider who had only raced at the Kent circuit once before in 2008 and this was his first race over the shorter Indy circuit. His team mate Victor Cox rode determinedly to finish 12th.

With 58 riders challenging for 38 places on the grid, free practice and qualifying took the form of the two group/race shoot-out system with Filip and Victor in the second group.

Backlund, who has settled easily into the team, quickly showed that he hasn't arrived in the UK simply to make up the numbers as he finished the free practice session in third place overall, just 0.48s off the pace. Cox meanwhile was taking things steady on his Pirelli shod ZX-10R and finished 16th overall.

First qualifying was held in better conditions and Filip proved his performance earlier in the day was no fluke as he went round the 1.2 miles circuit almost 5 seconds quicker to finish the session as the highest placed Kawasaki rider in second. Victor improved by over 6 seconds to finish 14th.

With the weather slowly improving, team boss Ian Lougher knew the pace would intensify even more for the second session and decided to make a few small changes to the bikes.

This indeed proved to be the case as the second session saw both riders improve further to finish 5th and 16th respectively, Filip was only 0.39s off pole with Victor just 0.24s further back. Such is the competitive nature of this class, just over 1 second covered the top 30 riders.

Unbelievably in Sunday morning's warm-up session the water pump shaft bolts worked loose on both Victor and Filip's bikes, Victor took no part in the session as Filip managed to put in 10 laps.

Thanks to a bit of eleventh hour work on the team's part, both riders were able to take their place on the grid for the race.


As the riders crossed the line at the end of the opening lap, Backlund was in second, just behind race leader John McGuinness and in turn just ahead of the chasing pack including Cox in 13th.

On the fifth lap, one of the race favourites Simon Andrews crashed out without injury at Clark Curve as McGuinness began to open a gap on the field to almost two seconds.

On the next lap the gap increased by another second over a Kawasaki express train consisting of Adam Jenkinson in second, Peter Ward, Backlund, Jonathan Howarth, Jonathan Railton, Hudson Kennaugh and Danny Johnson with Victor a further 1.4s adrift of this group in 13th.

At half race distance the lead was down slightly to just over two seconds with Filip now firmly embroiled in a frantic five rider battle for second. Positions remained the same for the next few laps but with nine laps to go McGuinness' lead was reduced considerably and as the race reached two thirds distance the Morecambe man had been pegged back and now led by under half a second from Johnson, Ward and Backlund who had now pulled a gap on the chasers. Victor meanwhile was still battling on in 13th with Joe Burns, Rob NcNealy and Kyle Wilks for company.

With six laps to go Filip moved into second and was now on McGuinness' rear tyre with Jenkinson and Ward still a threat, and as the race neared it's conclusion at 20 laps, the battle for the podium places was between those four. A bit further back, Victor was now up to 12th and starting to close on Howarth and Jimmy Storrar.

Three laps remained as Jenkinson and Backlund moved ahead of McGuinness with Ward beginning to lose touch slightly on the first three. There was nothing in it between Jenkinson and Backlund as they crossed the line to start their last lap with just 0.09s separating them.

Despite Filip's best efforts he just couldn't find a way through and the two passed the chequered flag virtually together with Jenkinson getting the nod by the narrowest of margins at just 0.06s with McGuinness almost a second adrift in third. Victor held on to finish a clear 12th, just over half a second from a top ten finish.

The action now moves on to Hampshire with the next round of the championship taking place at Thruxton next weekend.

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