ePayMe Yamaha's John Hopkins and his team made some changes, in particular to the chassis and rider position to his R1 that have improved the bike from the opening MCE British Superbike round at Silverstone, and the American felt more comfortable onboard the Yamaha at Oulton Park.

Hopkins was happy with his wet set up and finished race-one just outside the top ten in eleventh, but a problem with a rear brake master cylinder in the final race meant that he only completed one lap and had to retreat to the pits.

But what the former MotoGP rider is feeling more positive about is that the bike is going in the right direction and still hasn't given up his goal of making it into the Showdown, and challenging for the championship title.

"We want to get on the podium consistently and make it into the Showdown. Once we make it there we want to win the championship - that's our goal and that's what we are here for at the end of the day. We are here to win it and I am eager to win the championship," said Hopkins, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

"I think we will get some new parts as the year progresses but the bike itself has a huge amount of potential and just the more time that we have on the bike we will be able to dig in to the potential of the bike and make it our own, and there is a lot more good lap times to come.

"We made quite a few chassis and rider position changes  this weekend and huge steps from where were we from Silverstone last time. It has been for the better and the bike feels a lot more comfortable and we were able to push and get better lap times."