Stockport’s Christian Iddon was caught up in an accident during free practice at Oulton Park in round four of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship.

Fortunately for the Tyce BMW, he was uninjured, but fellow racer Fraser Rogers broke his arm.

Despite varying conditions and low track temperatures, Iddon ran strongly through the free practice sessions, and even topped the times in the third and final session on a drying track, a first for the team’s new BMW S1000RR.

Claiming fifth in qualifying, of 29 riders, Iddon was happy with how the bike felt.

A great start to race one saw him run strongly in fourth for the opening laps, but six laps in a problem left him dropping down the order and forced to retire.

The team worked hard to find the issue, the bike ready with just minutes to spare to take the start of race two.

Another fifth-placed start, and another great getaway, saw Iddon run as high as third place, finally settling for sixth place at the flag, and with some decent points.

Yamaha’s Tarran Mackenzie retains the series lead with Iddon in 15th. Australian Josh Brookes dominated the weekend, winning both races.

Speaking to Tyco BMW afterwards, Iddon said: “The weekend was strong, I was always up there throughout all the sessions. T

“hen during race one we had a technical issue, which was absolutely no fault of the team or the bike, but thankfully the team managed to find the fault just before race two.

“I felt great up to half race distance with strong and consistent lap times, we just got a little too much tyre degradation towards the end of the race, but this is something we can learn from.

“Sixth place is a good starting point as it is valuable points so I’m fairly content leaving round two, but there is plenty more in the tank to come.

The next round of the British Superbike Championship, a triple-header at Donington Park in Leicestershire, takes place over the weekend of the May 24-26.