Milwaukee Yamaha’s James Ellison had to retire from the opening MCE British Superbike race at Brands Hatch because his visor misted up so badly that he could not see and was in danger of crashing out.

The lack of vision meant the Cumbrian father-to-be fell down the standings, after having a positive start in the opening lap, jumping from fourteenth to eighth. He carved his way through the order but Ellison was soon suffering with his visor misting up and despite persevering for several laps he was later forced to retire. His team-mate Tommy Bridewell continued to fly the flag for the Milwaukee Yamaha team and he had worked his way through to sixth at the chequered flag.

But Ellison is obviously disappointed with the outcome from today, and is trying to sort out the issue so it does not happen tomorrow, so he can come away from the final BSB round on a high.

“I am so disappointed with the outcome today and I feel gutted for the team. Qualifying wasn’t the best for us and then in the race I felt we could move up the order. I got a really good start and then I don’t know whether I got water inside it with the spray we had to start with, but my visor just misted up and my vision got increasingly worse,” said Ellison, at the circuit.

“I couldn’t see the apex or my braking markers and then it became a case of dropping steady backwards. I had a few moments and I was trying to carry on but once I had dropped out of the points I decided to come in because I wasn’t going to move up the order and I just risked crashing.

“We obviously need to look at getting the problem sorted and I know we have to start from the sixth row tomorrow but I want to turn the frustration of today into results now in the final two races.”