Tom Neave dominates aboard the Fireblade at Snetterton
Snetterton 300
Today in glorious conditions at Snetterton, Tom Neave took a dominant victory in the 12-lap Pirelli National Superstock Championship race, making it three wins from three aboard the Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP and further extending his championship lead by 24 points.
Proving to be the man to beat all weekend Tom topped the timesheets in practice, qualifying and dominated the race from start to finish at the 2.96-mile circuit. Starting the race from Pole position Tom momentarily dropped a place, however he regained the lead at Turn 4 where he stayed for the remainder of the race, crossing the line 2.084 seconds ahead of Taylor Mackenzie in second place. Smashing the lap record at the Norfolk circuit not once, but twice during the race Tom holds the new record of 1:49.516.
Meanwhile it's been a frustrating weekend for the teams' Bennetts British Superbike Championship riders with Glenn coming home 14th and 11th in today's races, retaining his seventh place in the championship standings with 161 points. Takumi Takahashi was not able to better his 14th place result from yesterday finishing today's two races 21st and 17th, while Ryo Mizuno retired from Race 2 and was not able to start the last race of the day due to a technical issue.
The team now has a quick turn around ready for the next round of the championship which takes place next weekend at Silverstone's National Circuit on 10-12 September.
That was probably the best fun I've had on a bike all year, normally you only pull point-one of a second each lap, but as soon as I got that two second lead on lap four or five, I enjoyed riding the Fireblade and hitting my points. Everything was working great, and I just reminded myself why I love racing bikes and why I do this. We knew coming into the weekend we can be strong here, we won here last year and we're on a winning streak at the moment. You do put pressure on yourself and my rivals have been with me all weekend, so I've had to be on my A-game, but to pull it off in that style is exactly how I wanted to win!
I think what we can take away from Snetterton is once again I’ve shown that myself and Fireblade have the ability during a qualifying session and what we can do in terms of outright pace. Maybe it’s something since yesterday’s crash, but today we had no pace whatsoever. It’s frustrating but we’ve gathered data and information with my teammates to try to narrow things down on what’s hindering us at the moment. I hope we can go to Silverstone having found some solutions.
Today was a really unlucky day for me. I had to retire from Race 2 due to a problem, and in Race 3 I had a problem before the start and couldn't start the race, which was a frustrating end to the day. Trouble can happen to anyone, so I'm going to refocus and try again next week at Silverstone.
I struggled in today's races and just didn't have the same feeling as I did in qualifying and yesterday's race, so I wasn't able to better my position. I'm still struggling, but I'll be ready for a good result at the next round at Silverstone.