RAF Reserves BMW's Peter Hickman made it back on to the podium for the third time this year, with a third place finish during the opening MCE British Superbike race at Silverstone.

The road racer, who is in contention for the Riders Cup accolade was able to out-pace both JG Speedfit Kawasaki's James Ellison and Moto Rapido Ducati's John Hopkins to hold on to final spot on the rostrum behind championship contenders, PBM Kawasaki's Shane Byrne and Milwaukee Yamaha's Josh Brookes.

It was a solid points haul from Hickman, but he wasn't able to replicate the podium finish in race-two as he was blighted by tyre and clutch issues, but still crossed the line well inside the top ten in eighth.

"Race-one was mega and we had a new engine at Assen and it has taken a bit longer for us to understand the characteristics of it, but it has gone really good," said Hickman, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the track.

"We put down some good lap times and but the mid part of the first race the front few really pushed, but I backed off to save the tyre and let the front four disappear thinking hopefully they would come back towards the end of the race - and that's what happened so it was a strong finish for us and it was fantastic.

"At the end of race-one we had a fire on the bike on the cool down lap, but unfortunately we were not too sure if it wrecked the shock or not. So we just changed it and we had a clutch problem, but it wasn't really holding me back too much but the tyre was really bad. It felt different to  race-one and I couldn't do the lap times I needed to do. It is a shame we dropped back to eighth - but a third and an eighth is a strong weekend."