JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s James Ellison came away from the MCE British Superbike race weekend at Assen with two second place finishes, and with his consistent form he has edged ever closer to Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes and PBM Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne in the overall standings.
The Cumbrian has been on the pace all weekend, and racked up some vital points to keep him in contention to fight for the BSB crown. It was a positive weekend for the rider as he also signed a new deal with his GBmoto team, that will keep him in the series for another year.
His plan ahead of the race weekend was to do the best he could, and he certainly did just that and was ever so close to pipping Brookes to the post in both races. But Ellison is still not 100 percent fully fit, as he is still recovering from a nasty wrist injury, which meant he had to sit out some races this season. But he is battling through the pain to keep his championship hopes alive.
“The plan was to come here and do the best we could. We needed to start winning as we’ve lost a lot of the season through injury so we needed to be winning to be in with a shot of the title - we certainly won’t be giving up until the final lap of the last race at Brands Hatch,” said Ellison.
“We had really strong pace at the start of race one; I was able to run with Josh. The bike felt really good but about five laps in we got some vibration and it got worse and worse and then I made some mistakes and in the end you start thinking about it too much.
“I felt like I had a little bit of extra help this weekend with my Dad watching over me, and I had a couple of moments where I thought the race over especially in race two. I kept thinking about the effort he put in to me and my brother over the years, and I just kept digging in deep because when I saw I had big gap I thought Josh was in a little bit of trouble with other riders, so when he gets through he’ll have a chance of catching me.
“I got the gap to two and half seconds, but then he just kept coming back at me. We still hung with him, and we crossed the line not far behind so I’m really pleased with that. We clawed some more points back on Shakey as well, which is good, there are three of us in the championship, not just Josh. So it feels like job done.”
