John Hopkins and Josh Waters opened their Oulton Park British Superbike Championship triple-header weekend with sixth and eighth places in today’s opening race of three at the Cheshire venue as Taylor Mackenzie took eighth place in the Supersport sprint race.

Both BSB riders have improved their grid positions for tomorrow’s second race: Hopkins jumps onto the second row in fifth place with Waters heading-up row three in seventh.

John Hopkins:

“Yeah we can take plenty of positives away from today’s race but it was also frustrating that we couldn’t compete right at the front in the podium positions. The lap times are all pretty similar so we really need to make a good start and try to tag onto the front two or three tomorrow and hopefully use the draft to get pulled into a potential podium spot. We’ve made progress again as a team and everyone is working hard towards that first podium finish on my side of the garage.”

Josh Waters:

“That’s more like it. I’ve been consistently in the top-10 this weekend and it’s nice to be able to see the front of race and feel part of it for pretty-much the whole duration. It’s all about confidence and today I feel like I’m riding the Tyco Suzuki GSX-R1000 rather than it dictating to me. There’s a good buzz in the garage and with a row-three start tomorrow I’ll be hoping to build on today’s result. Thanks to the team for their support and Niall Mackenzie for the pep talks this week.”

Taylor Mackenzie:

“I was out-of-sorts yesterday but we made some radical changes today and the bike felt so much better. It took me a few laps to get dialled-in to the new settings but the GSX-R600 feels so much easier to ride and more like my 125cc days where I can bang the throttle open off the turns and not spin up. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s second race now.”

Philip Neill – Team Manager:

“We have to be realistic and this weekend my goals for John were top-five and today we were knocking on the door of that throughout. It’s the first time this year we’ve been in the mix at the sharp-end pretty much the whole race, which is pleasing and confidence inspiring for the whole team. There’s more to come and with a better grid position, if he can get away with the front guys, I’m confident he can improve on today’s result.

“Today we also started to see the real Josh Waters with consistent lap-times and great body language on the bike. He was also on the back of that leading freight train in the early stages, so wet or dry I’m confident we will also see improvements from Josh tomorrow.

“Taylor struggled a bit yesterday but, as he pointed out, we made some radical changes to his bike and not only does he feel more comfortable, but he’s also learning the benefits of understanding set-up changes that I believe will see him move forward, not just tomorrow but for the rest of the season.”

British Superbike Championship, Oulton Park, race one result:

1. Ryuichi Kiyonari (BMW)
2. Josh Brookes (Yamaha) +0.496s
3. Shane Byrne (Kawasaki) +2.011s
4. Tommy Bridewell (Yamaha) +4.362s
5. Dan Linfoot (Kawasaki) +5.981s
6. John Hopkins (Tyco Suzuki) +7.149s
7. Peter Hickman (Honda) +8.501s
8. Josh Waters (Tyco Suzuki) +10.690s
9. Stuart Easton (Kawasaki) +13.781s
10. Howie Mainwaring (Kawasaki) +14.519s

.