Tyco Suzuki’s John Hopkins did not expect to start his first MCE British Superbike race of the season on the front row, at the Brands Hatch Indy circuit, and was surprised that he managed to push his way on to third on the starting grid after a three year absence away from the series.
Hopkins made it all the way to Q3 without falling off his bike, and was in the minority until he crashed at the Cooper Straight – but he had already done enough to secure his place on the front row with his best lap of 56.148 in wet conditions.
“I didn’t expect to be here on the front row so soon at round one, and the bike works really well in the wet, and it made my job easy,” said Hopkins.
“On the last lap I high-sided and landed on my head. But the team have been working with different tyres and trying to do the race distance and we are pretty happy with our race setup. I want to finish well inside the top five for the first round and hopefully I can do that tomorrow.”
