Both Swan Yamaha's Tommy Hill and Noriyuki Haga were thwarted in their attempts to bag a good points haul in the opening British Superbike round at Brands Hatch yesterday as rear grip issues saw the Japanese struggle and the reiging champion crash out with a handful of laps to go.

Hill went down as the result of a shock problem at Graham Hill Bend, where he also crashed out of qualfying, while Haga just couldn't make the rear of his YZF-R1 find any traction on the soaking wet Kent tarmac.

"In the first race I had a bit of a problem with the rear and I knew something wasn’t right. I just struggled with grip and was trying to score some points and that isn’t what we wanted to do here. I crashed and it was unlucky but we had a problem with the shock and we then worked hard to resolve it for the second race but never got the chance to try it out in the end,” said Hill.

Haga was equally downbeat, saying: “I am just super disappointed with the result and I wanted a better finish to the race for sure. I was having a problem with the rear grip and it was very slippery so it made it difficult to push hard and I wanted to get points and not crash. It did feel like a long race and it is a shame because if we had better feeling then we could have pushed more and then maybe had a better finish."