Danny Buchan says he’s happy to be back at the front of the pack in dry conditions despite missing out on his first Showdown appearance by four points.

The FS-3 Racing Kawasaki rider admitted he was gutted to fall just shy last weekend as Peter Hickman took the final position in the title fight, but says he and his team are still chasing wins.

Buchan ended this morning’s first practice session third quickest, less than half a second off today’s pace-setter Jake Dixon and only a tenth behind championship leader Leon Haslam.

And despite only finishing 13th in this afternoon’s red-flag-delayed and very wet FP2, last year’s National Superstock 1000 champion says he and the FS-3 squad have the pace in reserve if they need it.

“It was one of those sessions where if I wanted to push I could have pushed,” Buchan admitted to Bikesport News. “I told the guys if I wanted to take a second off my lap I probably could have done that the next lap if I wanted to, but I was quite happy building up like I was building up.

“There’s a few little things we can change with the bike, but nothing major. The important thing was being fast in the dry this morning and coming off Silverstone it’s quite nice because we didn’t get the results we wanted there.

“It’s nice to be back at the front and to be honest I’m not too worried about the wet. When you get out in the race it depends on how much it rains and how damp the track is anyway.”

Buchan admitted that while it’s a bitter pill to swallow to resign his title hopes this season, he and his team will be carrying the lessons learned into next year as he looks to pick up wins for the rest of 2018.

“It was gutting to be four points shy of the Showdown. It was one of them where if I had finished a race at Cadwell in the top three or not been taken out at Thruxton it might have been different, but all we can do now is take the experience into next season and see if we can get into that showdown next year.

“The Showdown boys might be riding a bit less defensive than us because they’ve got a championship to worry about, so I’m just going to do the best I can every round. I just want to be winning races so we’re still going to try and do that.”