Bennetts Suzuki’s Christian Iddon overcame illness to prove to the rest of the MCE British Superbike grid that both him and his team mean business this season. The former World Supersport title challenger is seventh in the overall championship standings after seventh and fifth place finishes at Donington Park yesterday.

Iddon showed that he had the pace to challenge for a possible podium after fighting it out with RAF Reserves Peter Hickman and Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes in the final race at the Leicestershire track.

The Stockport rider held his nerve and had the race pace to stay inside the top five. Iddon is now the leading Suzuki in the championship and hopes to make an even bigger impact at Brands Hatch at the end of the month, where he should be sickness free.

“It has been brilliant – the illness hasn’t helped. It was no excuse in the races just a bit of lacking energy, but what it did effect was the ability to set up the bike for the first two days. Basically I was going around doing lap times and I couldn’t do long runs. I couldn’t give any feedback that was of any use as I didn’t know what was going on,” said Iddon, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

“Race one was OK and a few people went down and we ended up in quite a good position which was good. In race two because I did a long run I was able to give some positive feedback with the bike, and the guys transformed it and for the second race it was fantastic. It rode itself and it is a good finish and it is a strong, solid weekend for us and I am so happy.”

“What I was able to do was to be consistent and we were closing in on the front riders, and then I could see them trying to have a dice – and I thought ‘go on have a go boys’. We ran out of time a bit and I was running out of steam and I was happy to see the flag to be honest.”