Tyco Suzuki’s team manager Philip Neill has not had the best of starts to his MCE British Superbike campaign. For 2014 he has a new set of riders, John Hopkins and Josh Waters but neither have been close to bagging a podium finish so far.

Former MotoGP competitor John Hopkins was the one who was tipped to be a real title challenger to Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne and Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes, but for some reason things haven't clicked just yet, and Hopkins has found himself mid-pack out on track, like he was at Oulton Park -  leaving Neill with some concerns.

"It has been a difficult race weekend for us. It's not really what we come here for. We have had a lot of success after the last few years, and we are here to challenge for podiums and win races - and that hasn’t happened,” said Neill, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

“We had a top ten after the end of the second race at [Oulton Park] but we had a technical problem in race one. We kind of knew that we had to be patient at the start of the year, but there's improvement to be made in all areas, and a few good results will boost the rider’s confidence. We are looking ahead to Snetterton, where we hope our championship campaign will start, and forget about the first two rounds.”

The BSB riders will have a break for a few weeks before round three at Snetterton and Neill hopes Hopkins uses his time away from the track to get himself sorted physically and mentally, with the hope he can get back to his best, like fans saw back in 2011.

"John will go home for a few weeks and hopefully do some training and get his head in a good a position as possible, we know where we are with the bike now and we need to find the best set up for each round. We tried a new engine this weekend, and maybe it was a bit early for us to try that out.

"John has a lot of things to adapt to, and until I spoke to him a few months ago maybe he wasn’t even really realistically thinking about coming back to racing, I cant speak for him, but that is maybe the case.

“I think the decision to come back to racing came very quickly for him and I think its a good time for him to have a break to reflect on everything and the decision he's made. Also on his fitness and recovery from injury - and it will be good for him.

“I think round three will be a massive round for John and hopefully we will see his championship come alive at Snetterton, and if we don’t then I’m not sure that we will.

"Josh Waters is fitting in really well, and he is comfortable with the bike. He has had a tough few years but he has the talent and ability. His confidence was destroyed last year and I knew that we would have a building exercise with him this year.

“To be honest the riders are maybe a bit further back than I thought they would be, but we all need to work together to get results."