BSB: OMG Racing on the up with best result yet at Snetterton

The OMG Racing team showed their capabilities with their best result yet in the 2018 Bennetts British Superbike Championship, with Gino Rea scoring a double point-scoring finish – including a best of 11th – whilst Josh Elliott showed a great pace throughout the weekend in the National Superstock 1000 category.

Ex GP-podium rider Gino Rea was adapting to the Ohlins suspension at Round 4; improving his times in each session. Qualifying in 19th, Gino had some solid work to do around the Snetterton 300 circuit and finished 14th in race one. Race one’s lap time placed him 17th on the grid for race two. Gino powered through in the second outing, taking 11th place and knocking on the door of the team’s first top ten!

Gino Rea stated, “It’s been an interesting weekend for us. We’ve been able to experiment with a few areas on the bike and we’re finding positives that we can take forward. We made some improvements for the second race and our pace was stronger and more consistent to finish 11th, which is our best result of the season. Andrew Irwin on the PBM Ducati came past me during the race and I did my best to hold onto him, but I was just struggling in a couple of areas.

“We ended the weekend on a positive note with another point scoring result, and an idea on where we can improve. I’d like to say thank you to the entire OMG Racing team for their continued hard work and commitment to keep improving our package. Roll on Knockhill!”, he concluded.

2015 National Superstock 1000 champion Josh Elliott went in pursuit of repeating his Snetterton 300 victory of the same year, getting down to a great pace as soon as he stepped onto the bike. The Ulsterman qualified just 0.034 outside of the top ten in 11th, and was running a fantastic sixth by the end of lap one. However, a crash at turn three ended Elliott’s charge to the front, but his pace in itself gives the team much hope ahead of Knockhill.

Making the switch from the Morello Kawasaki team to the new OMG Racing outfit, Elliott said, “I am very happy with my first race weekend with OMG Racing UK team. I made progress each session and I was feeling more confident with the Suzuki GSX-R 1000 with every lap. We were  unfortunate to have a slip-off in the race while getting onto the back of leading group. Track conditions were very poor after the sidecar race for some reason and they caught me out. I’d like to say a massive thank you to the whole team for making me feel so welcome straight away, and for all of their efforts throughout our first weekend together!”

Team manager Paul Curran was full of praise of both riders after the weekend, with a promising set of results across the three days giving the team confidence ahead of Knockhill in just under three weeks time.

Ex-racer Curran was positive about the weekend, saying, “It has been a very busy weekend for team OMG, with a new suspension in Ohlins, a new rider to the team in Josh Elliott and our crew chief recovering from an operation (get well soon, Ray!).

“Firstly, I must say I was very impressed with Josh’s first race weekend with us; every time he rode the bike he was faster and gave very good feedback and understanding of the bike. It was a real shame what happened in the race as he showed the pace to run at the front from lap one. It was a very promising start and gives us good prospects for the future rounds.

“For the Superbike, we had a new suspension manufacture for this weekend so we were going into the unknown for FP1. We spent the weekend trying many different set-ups and component swaps to try and get the best from the bike for Gino. By race two we had found a good race pace setting and tyre combination, giving us our best result since joining the championship across all classes.

“Together, we have learnt a lot about the new suspension over the weekend and some possible new directions with the bike. A big thank you to the whole OMG team; everyone completed great job as ever over the whole weekend. We are looking forward to Knockhill and scoring some more points on the board.”