Prior to that the Mitchells of Mansfield supported brothers travel to Pembrey in Wales for the opening round of the 2010 Eastern Airways Battle of Britain F1 British Sidecar championship which takes place over the weekend of April 9 – 11.


“We are really pleased with the new Louis Christian chassis, the handling is incredible and the new design and the updates made this year make it a really special machine to ride,” said Ben.

“Our intention is that we defend our world title this year and also contest the Battle of Britain championship. We are really looking forward to Pembrey, the last time we competed in a British championship was in 2005 and we ended up as runners up that year so we will be looking for a good strong set of results from the first outing which will also test the new outfit ahead of the world championship round at Le Mans the following week.

“We would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to our sponsors, family, friends and fans for their continued support of the team over the closed season and we look forward to bringing home some good results for them in 2010.”

“The only disappointment for us this year is, that due to the late delivery of the F2 outfit we have no option but to put our Isle of Man TT plans on hold this year. It is very important that the machine is 100% prepared and tested prior to racing, even more so with the TT only a few weeks away and if we were to go ahead on an unproven machine then it would compromise both safety and performance.

“We would like to thank the Isle of Man Tourist board for their understanding and continued support plus the many people who have given us their support in the venture. Our aim is to go back to the Isle of Man next year with a bike that is capable of winning races and to do this will take a lot of preparation and time – a commodity that is simply not now available to us this year.”

The first three rounds of the 22 race Battle of Britain championship take place at Pembrey with qualifying at noon on April 10 followed by the 18-lap Superpole race at 4pm. Races two and three follow on Sunday, April 11 at 12.50pm and 4.50pm and will run over 12 laps of the 1.456-mile circuit.

The first round of the World Sidecar championship is at Le Mans in France on April 17 as a support race to the Le Mans 24-hour World Endurance race.