Tyco BMW’s newest recruit Andy Reid is making progress on the S1000RR, and was just outside the points during the MCE British Superbike race weekend at Thruxton.

The seventh round of the series proved to be a weekend of firsts for the Northern Irishman. He made his debut in the second qualifying outing on Saturday and set the eighth quickest time in the final free practice session.

In the first race on Sunday Reid was as high as 12^th and well within the points. At the end of the 18 lapper he dropped back to 17^th, after being involved in battles on track with Honda Racing’s Dan Linfoot and Team WD-40’s Tommy Bridewell.

In race two he was once again narrowly close to getting his first points for the team, but he was outpaced by Michael Laverty and James Westmoreland in the final stages, to cross the line in 16^th.

This is only Reid’s third time riding a Superbike and he has already made progress since the last round at Brands Hatch. His goal is to hopefully make it into the top ten over the remaining rounds.

“This is the third time on a bike in a long, long time, coming off a 600 and a nine month break and it is a big jump for any rider. This weekend we have made a lot of progress in comparison to Brands Hatch,” said Reid, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

“It is a different track and we went out in FP3 and it turned out that we went eighth and for me that was fantastic. I was happy and mixing it with the guys. 0.2s would have put me fifth, and 0.2s back would have put me 16^th so it’s just so close.

“With qualifying we didn’t really improve on the position but we went faster on lap time in the first qualifying and I set myself a goal of Q2 and I got into Q2 and then we went out in Q2 and it was another learning curve and went out on a new tyre. I pushed too hard rather than letting it come to me like in other sessions and I got a bit of a slide going and lost a bit of time. I put a new tyre in towards the end to get another lap in and it was tough around here.

“In race one I was battling with Michael Rutter, Bridewell, and Laverty – who was a race winner around here last year. This is my third time sitting on a Superbike and the bigger picture is that we are doing well. The team is great too and I am working well with my crew chief.

“It is my best result so far we have improved and we are just outside the points and we are going to go back and set some more goals going into the next race. If we keep going the way we are going it should not be long until we get into the top ten.”