Despite the unseasonal spring weather doing its best to disrupt proceedings, VisionTrack Ducati rider Christian Iddon made the most of the breaks in the cloud to set fastest time at the second official test for the 2021 Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Snetterton.
Day one of the latest round of the test tour was effectively washed out on Tuesday at the Norfolk track with virtually none of the riders venturing out in any of the sessions before yesterday dawned brighter and saw Iddon, on Paul Bird’s factory supported VisionTrack Ducati Panigale V4R, on the pace.
The 36 year old from Stockport, but now based at Blaydon on Tyneside, set fastest time in yesterday morning’s session before waiting until the final moments of the second session in the afternoon to post his best lap, which put him 0.166s ahead of fellow Ducati rider Tommy Bridewell.
The rain returned for the third session and teams chose to end the day early in preparation for today’s final day of testing, but once again the weather proved to be the only winner, and Iddon, who took his maiden Bennetts BSB victory at Snetterton last year, was forced to end the day early along with everyone else.
Defending champion Josh Brookes was present at the Snetterton test but didn’t ride following a finger injury sustained at Silverstone last week. The 37-year-old Bedfordshire-based Aussie had a minor operation under local anaesthetic on Sunday to repair the little finger on his left hand but because of the poor weather forecast and to prevent any complications, it was decided to keep the number one VisionTrack Ducati parked up. Brookes plans to be back in action along with his teammate Iddon at the next official test which takes place at Oulton Park on May 19th.
Christian Iddon: “It was very good to top the only two sessions that really happened so from that point of view, it was a real confidence booster. Not only that, I felt we were strong, and the bike was good although we couldn’t really get our teeth into things and we didn’t get to try a lot of what we had planned. It’s a shame we couldn’t do more laps, but it wasn’t just the wet weather, the track was just too cold, and it wouldn’t have made sense to go out and we had nothing to gain. We started where we finished at Silverstone and got some really good data so we will take what we learned into the next test at Oulton in a couple of weeks and then the one after that at Donington as we build towards the season ahead.”
John Mowatt, Team Co-Ordinator: “The weather played havoc with ours and everyone else’s plans this week, you just don’t expect this in May, but we made the most of the limited track time we had and couldn’t do any more than Christian topping both dry sessions. It was just a case of working through our schedule as best we could, but we didn’t make as much progress as we would have liked because of the wet weather and cold track temperature. Hopefully, the next tests will be more beneficial, and we look forward to welcoming Josh back after sitting this one out so as not to aggravate his finger injury he sustained at Silverstone.”
The opening round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship takes place over the weekend of 25/27 June at Oulton Park.
Pictures attached (courtesy of Double Red Photographic): Christian Iddon (21).
ENDS
