After a 12-race hiatus, Christian Iddon was back on the Bennetts British Superbike Championship podium at Silverstone and the three podium credits for second place in Saturday’s race, ensured he heads into the three-round Showdown in third place overall, 35 points adrift of series leader Jason O’Halloran.

It hasn’t been the easiest of times for the VisionTrack Ducati rider since taking second in the opening race at Thruxton at the end of July, the combination of being taken out by other riders and his own crashes causing his championship challenge to be hit considerably.
 
The podium may have been slightly fortuitous with the Yamaha pairing of Jason O’Halloran and Tarran Mackenzie crashing but he was due a slice of luck and was in the leading pack throughout the race, a podium in its own right very much a possibility. The result has given him a huge boost ahead of the Showdown.
 
“I was really happy to be back on the podium as I’ve been off the pace recently and had a few tough rounds so it’s nice to get the feeling again,” a pleased Iddon said afterwards.
 
“Even at the start of this weekend, I was only average, but we made some improvements during qualifying, and I kept moving forward the whole race. Gino Rea looked to have that bit more on the Suzuki, but I was confident I could get by Glenn Irwin although the crash changed everything, and we ended up second.
 
“I was really strong in some parts of the track but weak in others so we made some changes ahead of Sunday’s first race to help me get off the corners better.”
 
The Tyneside-based rider wasn’t able to replicate his result on Sunday and later admitted they’d gone the wrong way with those changes for the first race whilst he also had a huge moment when another rider caught his handlebar, the incident seeing him down the side of the bike, off track and smashing through a polystyrene advertising board!
 
“We weren’t as competitive in Sunday’s first as what we’d been the day before whilst I’ve no idea how I stayed after being caught by another rider. It took me a while to regroup after that but we were missing that little bit, particularly with tyre life.”
 
Further changes were made to the Ducati Panigale ahead of the final race of the weekend and, like Saturday, Iddon was again in contention throughout, both before and after the red flag.

“Things were a lot different for the final race. The bike was working really well although I got caught out by a cold tyre and ran wide and then did so again when I got clipped once more.
 
“The red flag helped me out as I managed to go from 12th to fifth and I felt very racy so a podium was definitely on the cards. I got caught up with Tommy Bridewell a bit and the chance went so I’m a bit frustrated but we haven’t lost much ground in the championship this weekend and it’s all about the Showdown now.”
 
Iddon sits in third overall in the championship, 35 podium points behind O’Halloran and 15 behind Mackenzie.