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Brands BSB: Maiden top ten finish for rookie Ray

Buildbase Suzuki’s Bradley Ray certainly made his presence felt during the MCE British Superbike round at the Brands Hatch Indy circuit, and fought hard to finish inside the top ten in eighth place in race two.

The young-gun did end up in the gravel during the four-day event, and a free practice fall meant that his team were in a race against time to get his GSX-R 1000 back to working order in time for qualifying.

Ray was unable to make it out of Q1 and had to start from 19th on the grid. But he still managed to finish the opening race inside the points in 12th, just behind Team WD-40’s Tommy Bridewell.

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The Buildbase bike gained pace and on the SC2 front and softer SC0 rear he was able to begin race two from the fifth row. He fought hard through the mid-pack and was able to get the better of former World Superbike champ, Sylvain Guintoli and ex MotoGP star, John Hopkins to finish a solid eight - his first top ten finish in the blue riband class.

Ray admitted that he was nervous going into the first round at Donington Park, but that feeling has appeared to have faded away, as he is near the sharp end fighting with title winning racers.

“Coming into the weekend I was feeling quite confident and during the test. We chucked a new tyre in on Saturday, but we had a crash going into Clearways and it took a while to build the bike up and for qualifying we had to use a certain part that we have not done any testing on,” said Ray, speaking to bikesportnews.com from the track.

“That put us on the back foot for qualifying, that is why we were so far down. We got up to 12th in race one and we got up to eighth in race two. The bike feels really good and good on used tyres too. I think we can be in with the shout with more top tens this year and hopefully a top five.

“At Donington it was nerve wracking as it was quite overwhelming being in the BSB paddock with all those champions. I have to stay grounded and do my on thing and not think about who I am on track with. It seems to be paying off.”

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