BSB: Ray struggles but remains upbeat after Brands

Lydd’s Bradley Ray endured a testing weekend at Brands Hatch GP circuit, however remains positive that he will be able to remain in the Showdown positions. The 21-year-old BSB opening round winner finished 13th and 16th in two punishing 20-lap encounters, where numerous Suzuki riders finished outside the top ten.

Positivity remained though, with Bradley still safely inside the Showdown placings and whilst his nearest rivals did take some points out of him, they were not enough to place the Buildbase Suzuki-ace in any imminent threat. Brad now heads to Thruxton, a circuit where he went well at last season with his best qualifying at the time happening at the Hampshire circuit – the fastest in the country.

Ray is now 5th in the championship and 17 points away from being pushed out of the top six – although that is to Shane Byrne who is unlikely to be back in time to demote his fellow Kent compatriot. Bradley has 27 points in hand over Christian Iddon.

“Coming into Brands Hatch from the Indy round earlier on this season, I thought that we would remain quite strong from the off. We came here and struggled straight away in FP1 and we’ve been working so hard as a team to try and find a solution to the problem. We were losing so much grip on the front end, maybe we were OK for two laps but apart from that, there was no feeling at all. It would’ve been nice to have scored good points and maybe a podium in front of the home crowd, friends and close family but it wasn’t to be,” said the BSB youngster – who for the first time, finished a race outside the top 15 in BSB.

“We will come back stronger and more determined at Thruxton, that is for sure. Looking ahead to the near future, we have the Suzuka 8 Hour endurance race in Japan to deal with so maybe we can look at some options that may arise from that.”