GBmoto Kawasaki’s James Ellison was ‘quietly confident’ ahead of today’s MCE British Superbike races at the Brands Hatch Indy circuit, and proved to the rest of the paddock that he had the race-pace to challenge for the championship after finishing both events in third. He currently resides second in the championship standings, 22 points behind Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne.

Ellison set the quickest lap times in both sessions, and started on pole for race two. He feels that more work needs to be done on the bike’s suspension to help when using the softer tyre options. But considering he has jumped from a Yamaha to a Kawasaki Ellison is now aiming for a race win, and knows he has the speed to keep up with the likes of Byrne and Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes.

“After FP3 I knew we had a good pace to be competitive today – but we have done 46 zero around the track but the circuit seemed a bit slower today and I felt that there was less grip with the tyres out there,” said Ellison, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

“We hadn’t really shown our hand until today and we were quietly confident going into the both races. I had a good start and kept chipping away and I ended up having the fastest lap.I felt I could have won the second race and it took me a while to get past Chris Walker and Stuart Easton and I pushed hard to get up to where Shakey was on the track. I kept losing the front a bit.

“I think it is a bit of inexperience on our part as we are trying to understand the bike and we have never run the Kawasaki on a soft tyre for 30 laps, so we will have to look at the suspension settings to find something that is easier on the tyres.”

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