J&S Supported Rider Results - Round 8 Silverstone

Hi everyone, and welcome back to my blog covering the British Superbike Championship. So it all came down to 3 races this weekend from the shorter National layout at Silverstone to see who would make it into the final ‘Showdown’ for a chance to win the 2021 title. But let's start with the support races and see how the J&S backed riders went on.

It was the Honda Talent Cup first, and Sullivan Mounsey is on a great run of form at the moment and carried that on this weekend. Although he qualified in 9th place for the first race of the season, he had a great result for himself and his team in the race itself. Sullivan managed to secure his first podium with a fantastic 2nd place finish and only 0.2 seconds away from the race win.

The second race of the weekend for the young rider and a 6th place grid start, but he was forced off the grid before the warm-up lap after an issue with his bike and had to start right at the very back of the grid in 31st place. No podium, but a top 5 finish with a well earned 5th place. So a first podium and a top 5 finish, not a bad way to end the weekend for Sullivan.

Junior Superstock and only one race this weekend in this class. Qualifying saw Caolan Irwin start from 13th with Louis Valleley behind in 14th place.

The race saw Louis finish in 12th, with Caolan being unlucky and failed to finish.

Teammates Zak Shelton and Christopher Johnson were racing in the Junior Supersport class. Zak would start the first race of the weekend in 7th place, with Christopher down in 29th. Unfortunately, Zak didn't have much luck, who failed to finish the first race, but teammate Christopher climbed up to 21st position.

The second race was much better for Zak, who crossed the line in 4th position, with Christopher just missing out on the final points-scoring position in 16th place.

British Superstock Championship now and a packed grid as always in this tightly contested championship.

Lewis Rollo started the first race of the weekend in 14th place, Luke Mossey with a return to form with 4th place and starting from the front of the second row, Aprilia rider Fraser Rogers on the outside of the front row with BMW and title chaser Billy McConnell one position better in 2nd place.

The first race saw a DNF for Lewis Rollo on the Kawasaki, Fraser Rogers in 6th and just outside the top 5. Still, Luke Mossey had a welcome return to the podium with a solid 3rd place, but once again, the Aussie rider Billy McConnell took another 2nd place finish to claw back some championship points.

The second race of the weekend and a DNF for Luke Mossey after his bike caught fire with a technical problem which is not the way he wanted his weekend to finish. Lewis had a much better race and came home in 7th position; Billy missed out on a podium this time by crossing the line in 4th; the man who took the final podium place was Fraser Rogers, who came through to finish in 3rd place.

British Supersport and GP2 saw Dan Jones qualify in 9th place on his GP2 bike, Ben Currie on the outside of the front row in 3rd, with Rhys Irwin putting his Yamaha on pole for the first race of the weekend.

Great results for all the J&S supported riders on the first race with Ben finishing in 5th place, Rhys just ahead in 4th, and Dan Jones came home in 7th overall but was the 3rd GP2 bike and a podium sport for the young rider.

Second race and more points scored and podium places for the J&S riders, Ben was 5th in the Supersport standings with Rhys 3rd and his first podium of the season, and not to be outdone, Dan had a second podium of the weekend with another 3rd place.

Ben now leads the championship by 4 points and has been consistent and scored points at every race now.

Let's finish off with the main event and the Superbike Class, all to fight for with Glenn Irwin fighting to make the showdown. So qualifying and a great start to Glenn’s weekend with a 5th place start for the first race, Gino went one better and put his Suzuki in 4th place and the front of the second row.

The first race saw both Glenn and Gino break away with the leading pack. Unfortunately, an unfortunate incident with the two Yamaha riders saw them both crash out and the following riders having to take avoiding action. The one rider who suffered the most was Gino, who finished in 6th position, but he set the fastest lap of the race, which put him on pole for the second race of the season. As Gino suffered, Glenn prospered and picked the right line through all the damage and debris and ended up in first place and took the race win.

Race two, and from the highs of winning the lows of a 13th place finish for Glenn Irwin, meanwhile, Gino carried on his great form and made a great start from pole position and was leading the first few laps of the race until he dropped down the leading pack, but a great race saw Gino finish in 6th position.

The third and final race saw Glenn have a better result and a top ten finish with 9th place. Unfortunately, Gino had a crash in the final race of the day, which was such a shame after some fantastic results this weekend.

So that’s it. Glenn secured his showdown place, so all is to fight for in the final three rounds of the season, nine races to see who will become the British Superbike Champion for 2021.

The first ‘Showdown’ even takes place at Oulton Park over the weekend of 24th-26th September, so it’s a local one for J&S as our Oakmere Superstore is just down the round from the circuit.

So until then, thanks for reading and stay safe.

Thanks

Danny