Milwaukee Yamaha’s James Ellison had a mixed MCE British Superbike weekend at Brands Hatch after crashing out in race one and battling with Rapid Solicitors Shane Byrne for the win in race two, and ended up on the second step of the podium.

The Cumbrian battled hard, but however hard he tried he could not find a safe place to overtake Byrne for the victory. Ellison was hoping that the championship leader would make another mistake but the Kawasaki rider managed to stay up on his bike for the final race, leaving Ellison in second place on the track.

The rider was matching the times set by Byrne and felt comfortable with his bike, and is happy with the improvements that his team have made. Now Ellison is looking forward to Oulton Park where he hopes he can regain some consistency and come away with some solid points.

“I was hoping Shakey would make a mistake, so it was so hard to try and make a move without doing anything stupid, as I was strong going into the corners and Shakey was really strong coming out of them, and some places we were identical,” said Ellison, speaking at the circuit.

“But it was down to Shakey having a good race that I couldn’t overtake but I was riding hard, and the bike was working well. I had a crash in race one and needed to make up for it and get on the podium for race two, which I did and I am happy to be back on the podium again.

“But we need to get strong results every weekend to get that consistency and we can hopefully have three good races at Oulton Park, if I can’t go for a win I need to be up there to have some solid races.”