Peter Hickman shook off a weekend of mechanical issues at the Cadwell Park Bennetts British Superbike round to further close in on Showdown place.

Hickman's Smiths BMW crew had to twice change his engine over the course of the three days before the hometown hero was able to fight his way to a brace of fifth places and is now only one point behind Andrew Irwin in the points table.

“I’m happy enough with how the weekend has gone especially from where we were at the beginning when we were having a few issues," said Hickman.

t took us a long time to get to the bottom of everything and the boys were up all of Saturday night changing to a third engine, but it ultimately paid dividends as that was what allowed us to be where we were on race day.

"It was difficult coming from so far back on the grid in race one, but I put in a few overtaking manoeuvres and a couple of riders dropped out so fifth was a good result especially as it put me in a better position for race two.

"There, I got away well and just sat behind Christian but whilst I was stronger in some areas, he was stronger than me in others. I was in two minds what to do in terms of trying a pass, but I didn’t want to risk a crash and losing any points so settled for fifth.

"We’ve had a good haul of points this weekend and have gained a lot of ground on our rivals and are now just one point off the Showdown so with three races at the next round, we’ll be looking to clinch that top six place.”