Peter Hickman has made a plea for more power in his Smith’s Racing BMW after a hard-fought podium place in this afternoon’s second Bennetts British Superbike battle.

One of today’s pre-race favourites, the roads star was shuffled back to fourth in today’s first race before bagging third in a dramatic second scrap.

After leading before the first and second restarts of race two and while eventual winner Josh Brookes was out in a league of his own, Hickman was entangled in a battle with race one winner Andrew Irwin.

The Honda Racing rider gave Hickman a love tap out on the rapid Village section of Thruxton, which he immediately waved an apology for – but Hickman gave it back twice over moments later as he stuck a pass on Irwin and showed him the two-fingered salute in visible frustration.

Their battle didn’t end there, however, and while Redding passed them both on the final lap – only to be docked 15s for a missed long lap penalty – Hickman led Irwin out of the chicane before the Northern Irishman stole second place by just 0.012s on the drag to the line.

“We’ve been fast all weekend right from the start and the bike’s worked really well,” Hickman admitted.

“Race one just didn’t quite go to plan. I judged the race how I thought was about right, and then right towards the end someone tried to pass me into the chicane and sent me across the kerb. Then all of a sudden, we were a second behind the group of four at the front soI had to use my tyre to catch them – I got back to the group but it was just a bit too late.

“In race two it was stop start, it was really hard for everyone and you just had to keep your head going. We had a good race, Andy Irwin had some fairing bashing going on but overall it was really good.”

While he stayed tight-lipped on the incident with the Honda rider, Hickman made no bones about the fact that he still needs more ponies for the new 2019 S1000RR.

“We’re just down on power and here it really hammers us here especially. Snetterton was a bit of a struggle and here even more so, the back straight everyone just drags past me and I can’t pass anyone in the slipstream.

"We're just getting annihilated, but I'm not a little jockey like some of these boys.

“But we’ve got what we’ve got and fingers crossed BMW can sort out an engine sooner rather than later.”