FHO BMW’s Peter Hickman completed a challenging weekend of Bennetts British Superbike action in the points at Brands Hatch.

With round five of the national championship sandwiched in between two WorldSBK showings - as he gets set to sub for the still-recovering Michael van der Mark at BMW Motorrad at Most in the Czech Republic next weekend - Hickman was fighting on the fringes of the top ten for Saturday’s opener.

A strong start on Sunday morning, however, was quickly derailed after the 35-year-old was tagged off track and forced to regroup from the back of the pack. The impressive fightback resulted in 12th at the flag while race three ended with a more favourable eighth.

“It was a tough weekend, not what we were necessarily expecting,” Hickman said. "We were fast on Friday but things really changed when the temperature rose a lot - it appears to affect our bike more than any other manufacturer so I was actually slower on Saturday and on Sunday with lack of rear grip.

“The bike just doesn’t want to hook up coming out of corners so doesn’t provide a fast lap time so it’s been tough. One positive I can take away for myself was being top BMW in all three races.

“In the last race, we did actually make a bit of an improvement,” he continued. “We still had the same problem but we managed to make it much, much better even in the hot conditions so at least we’ve learnt something of the direction to go in if it’s ever this hot again. It’s just been a hard weekend.”