Blackhorse Kawasaki's Victor Cox fully justified his wild-card selection as he rode to a solid 14th place points finish in the FIM Superstock 1000 Championship round at Silverstone.
Friday's free practice session saw Victor out on unfamiliar Pirelli tyres as opposed to the Metzeler tyres which are commonplace in the BSB Superstock 1000 Championship, creating a challenge for the team especially in suspension set-up, however the session concluded with Victor in an excellent seventh position.
Having qualified in 18th, the team knew that more changes were needed to the suspension set-up and on Saturday evening a lot of thought and effort went into trying a whole different approach, it was a move that was to pay dividends. In the morning warm up Victor was 9th quickest which was pleasing but frustrating, as everyone in the team knew it would be a hard job for him to get through from 18th on the grid to run with the front runners. However Victor is a great competitor and he gave it a real go, taking 1.3 seconds off his best qualifying time in the race to finish a fine 14th with an uncharacteristic mistake on the last lap costing him a possible 12th place. Nevertheless a strong ride from the 24 year old which didn't go unnoticed by the Eurosport commentary team during their live coverage of the race.
Returning to action for Blackhorse Kawasaki at Silverstone was David Pearce who resumed his Metzeler National Superstock 600 campaign after missing the Snetterton round through injury, the Silverstone race being rescheduled from the postponed event at Oulton Park earlier in the season. David spent the allocated two free practice sessions learning his way round the unfamiliar circuit and with grid positions for the race determined by qualifying from the previously cancelled Oulton Park event, he started the race from 31st position on the grid. However the team shrewdly adapted similar changes to David's ZX-6R that had paid dividends for Victor Cox in the earlier race and this enabled David to storm through to 18th place when the race was stopped with two laps remaining thus denying the young Manx rider an even higher placing, an impressive ride however as a lot of the other lads had been at Silverstone on track days and had learnt the track which was a good advantage with the track being so long at 3.66 miles. Also, like his team-mate before him, David also lapped much quicker in the race knocking a full 2.1 seconds off his qualifying time with a lap of 2:18.2 seconds to round off a very satisfying weekend for the team.
It's a return to the domestic scene this weekend when both Victor and David will be in action in the next installments of the Metzeler National 1000 and 600 Championships respectively. The venue being the Brands Hatch GP circuit in Kent.
Photo: Victor Cox and the Blackhorse Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R (Courtesy: Clive Challinor Motorsport Photography)
www.blackhorsekawasaki.com
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment