Milwaukee Yamaha’s James Ellison was denied the chance to push for pole in the final MCE British Superbike qualifying session at Assen, after a fuel injector problem scuppered his chances of a front row start, leaving him feeling ‘cheesed off’.’

The title fighter was ready to try and move into the 1’36 lap time barrier but a problem with his bike left him fourth and heading up the second row as he bids to close the gap in the standings tomorrow.

His new team-mate Tommy Bridewell meanwhile had an impressive performance as he qualified third on the grid on his first weekend with the Milwaukee team, and ended Q3 one tenth of a second quicker than the Kendal lad. Ellison is ‘unhappy’ with the fuel injector issues, but is confident he has the pace to be competitive tomorrow.

“I am a bit unhappy to be honest as one of the fuel injectors went down during Q3 so it was on three and a half with less power than I normally would have. To start with I thought it felt weird because it didn’t have as much when I opened the throttle but we persevered and equalled what I did in Q2, although it was disappointing as I felt we had a 1’36 second time in there to come,” said Ellison.

“I am confident with my pace for the race tomorrow and although I feel cheesed off now I would rather it happened in qualifying than in the race as the second row isn’t the end of the world.”