JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s James Ellison was blighted by bad luck during the MCE British Superbike race weekend at Knockhill. He crashed out of contention in the opening race, before suffering a technical problem with his ZX-10R in the final outing.
With two DNF’s Ellison failed to pick up any points. The Kendal rider was leading the championship after Oulton Park, but after two rounds has slipped down to fourth, behind PBM Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne, Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes and Stuart Easton.
But the former MotoGP racer is still nursing two broken ribs that he sustained during the last round at Snetterton, and is naturally feeling disappointed, especially after setting the fastest lap in race one and starting from pole in the final session today.
“This weekend has been bitterly disappointing. I struggled a little with the ribs but we had the pace to be running at the front and chasing a podium and even the wins,” said Ellison.
“I had a silly little crash in the first race, which was a weird as we didn’t do anything different but it was at the same corner a lot of the guys did too so I’m not sure if there was something there. The saving grace of that however was I had set the fastest lap of the race so would be starting the second from pole position.
“Again that last race I came into it very confident of a good result and following Laverty for the opening few laps I thought I could be quicker so put a move on him but it was a bit of a hard one and the forks bottomed out which tried to tuck the front.
“With the grass being wet there was nothing I could do but rejoin in last position. The red flag gave us a bit of chance to move up but the bike cut out on us across thestraight. The team have worked flat out and the bike is mega, it’s a Championship winning package and we just need a bit of luck to get back to where we’ve shown we can run.”
