Swan Yamaha’s Tommy Hill secured a double podium finish at Thruxton today at the second round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship.

Hill had secured the pole position and in the opening race of the day and led for the majority of race one before Ian Lowry made a move with three laps remaining to force the defending champion to second place. In race two Hill again led the pack but as he suffered from lack of grip in the closing stages he again was forced to settle for second place, this time to Josh Brookes.

Noriyuki Haga had been working his way through the pack in the opening race but a technical issue forced him to retire after just five laps. In race two Haga had worked his way up to sixth place but in the closing stages he also suffered from lack of grip and ended the race tenth.

Hill said:

“It was a hard decision for race two and I contemplated changing between race one and two but we decided to go with what we knew as we didn’t want to go for a massive gamble that could have ruined our race. I could see Shakey was losing grip and I can’t believe I got robbed on the last lap for the win as that is twice today we have just missed out. Podiums are important though and after last weekend it was great to get back on the podium for Swan Yamaha. I think we will have more to come at Oulton Park next time out.”

Haga said:

“We had an unfortunate problem in the first race and I had to retire but for sure we could have been up there as we were improving all the time. It did make it difficult for race two as I didn’t have all the data from race one like the other riders, but we didn’t make many changes and then I was pushing hard in the first laps. It was hard to catch the leading group as we were out of the slipstream but Josh (Brookes) came past and he was very fast, by then I was starting to lose grip with the rear tyre and I had a few on the grass moments which meant I lost places. I was attacking Scassa before that and I think if we had finished race one we would have known more how the Swan Yamaha would react at the end of the race. I think Oulton Park should be a better result.”


Team owner Shaun Muir concluded:

“It was a solid weekend for Tommy and two podiums underlined his credentials. Noriyuki had a really disappointing race one through no fault of his own as a technical problem ended his charge. He then didn’t have the data from a full race and that cost him as he was looking like he could finish in the top six but then suffered with lack of grip towards the end of the race. He showed that he is moving forward so we expect to see more from him at Oulton Park.”

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