Stockport’s Christian Iddon made a strong start to the British Superbike Championship at Donington Park.
Iddon took a podium in race one, narrowly missing out on making it a double podium in race two.
Christian ran strongly during the first free practice aboard his Tyco BMW, finishing just seven-tenths of a second off the fastest time set by 2016 champion Shane Byrne (Ducati).
“I hadn’t had to push particularly hard so to have such good pace without trying all that hard was very positive,” said Iddon.
Although struggling during FP2 with an electrical fault, former Super Moto champion Iddon only got to set two flying laps, but he still managed to get to within six-tenths of the quickest time of Leon Haslam on his Kawasaki.
Saturday brought rain for the final free practice session of the weekend, so little could be taken from the times overall.
Iddon showed the bikes potential in the wet, however, by claiming third fastest, leaving him confident should the weather turn during the rest of the British summertime.
The afternoon’s qualifying session had to be cancelled due to an incident on circuit, leaving grids for the following day’s first race set from aggregate times of all three practice sessions.
It didn’t do Iddon any favours, however, as FP2, where Iddon had completed the fewest number of laps, turned out to be the quickest. It left the former World Superbike rider in tenth spot, of the 27 riders.
Iddon made a blinding start to race one, claiming to fifth place on the opening lap, despite dropping a place two laps later, Iddon, confident of his tyres, climbed to fourth behind Peter Hickman (BMW), and claimed the final podium spot from ‘Hicky’ with two laps remaining.
The Tyco BMW rider made another good start to race two, grabbing one place from seventh on the grid on the opening lap.
Again, conserving tyres, Iddon climbed as high as third with two laps to go, but it was Glenn Irwin (Ducati), who had looked after his tyres particularly well, who nicked third place on the final lap of the race.
“It’s been a positive start to the season,” added Iddon. “We’ve claimed a strong points haul, and we’re ready to carry on.
“We’re on the short circuit [next time out, at Brands Hatch], so times will be ridiculously close. It [Brands] wasn’t my best circuit last year, but we’ll do our best to change that.”
