McAMS Yamaha’s James Ellison is ‘devastated’ after coming away from the MCE British Superbike round at the Brands Hatch Indy circuit with no points despite setting pole and re-working the lap record book.
The Cumbrian had such a stellar start to the race weekend, and broke the outright lap record at the track during qualifying on Sunday, with an impressive 44.728. He was on pole position not once, but twice after setting the fastest lap during the first race.
But while leading the opening leg, Ellison crashed unhurt at Druids. His team were then in a race against time to get his R1 ready for the final event - re-building the front end of the bike. Ellison made his way to the starting grid, but began shaking his head. His crew tried to fix the bike, but it was too bent after the crash.
Ellison did his warm up lap but then retired to the pits, and missed out on the chance to clinch his maiden win of the season. But the Yamaha rider has vowed to come back stronger at the next round.
“I am not hurt after the crash - just devastated. We thought we got the bike fixed and the front end was pretty damaged on it, so the guys replaced everything - unfortunately we did not see that the head bearing itself had broken and made the inside of the frame oval,” said Ellison speaking to bikesportnews.com.
“The next set of bearings looked OK but when I went out there they were moving around in the headstock, so I could not lean the bike over, the frame is bent basically so we were unable to race it.
“Just devastated - two pole positions, fastest lap of the race, fastest lap ever around the track and we left here with no points. I had a little cry as I packed my motor home up but now we have to reset at Oulton Park.
“I have got to take the positives out of it, I am not going to go away and sulk about it. Just regroup, wake up tomorrow a different person and get ready for Oulton.”
