Ryan Vickers is eager to get the second round of the ZYN British Superbike Championship at Donington Park underway as the Honda Racing UK rider aims to build on the opening round of the season when he took a hat trick of top ten finishes with his new team.
Vickers was the leading Honda contender at Oulton Park, with a best result of seventh in race two at a track that he admits was always going to be a challenge for them, but is now eager to get to Donington Park next weekend where he believes will be a happier hunting ground.
Vickers said: “It was nice to get the first round out of the way and knowing that Oulton Park was probably, from the team’s experience, going to be the most difficult track on the calendar for the Honda and they weren’t wrong. It’s not an easy track for the bike at all.
“We managed to improve a lot over the course of the weekend, but unfortunately not enough to fight for a podium or a top five. We were just about able to just about match the pace of the leaders for maybe five or six laps in the last two races, which was a massive step compared to prior to that. To be able to close that gap on a new tyre was a little bit of a positive but unfortunately, we couldn’t maintain that for the full race distance as the tyre begins to drop.
“Overall, I’m pretty happy as we got three top tens and actually there’s people that will be fighting for the championship as well that had worse weekends, so it could have been worse, but it could also have been better.
“I feel like I got the most out of the package, I was the top Honda and managed to set the fastest ever Honda lap around Oulton Park, which was a small little added bonus. But we’re there to try and fight for the podiums and fight for the wins so I look forward to getting to Donington Park where I think it should help the bike’s performance a little bit more.
“I’m feeling really good about Donington, it’s a track that I love and really enjoy and I’ve had some great results there. I got my first BSB podium at Donington so a lot of great memories and I think we will be able to fight for the podium at Donington, so really looking forward to getting there as the fans are always great and I look forward to getting going.”