Tyco Suzuki’s John Hopkins is a frustrated man after narrowly missing out on an MCE British Superbike podium at Assen when he was caught out by a late rain shower in race one and didn’t have the top speed in race two.

The former MotoGP star said he didn’t want to risk crashing as he tried to stay with Ryuichi Kiyonari and Shane Byrne in the second outing, and simply ran out of front-end grip in the closing stages.

“I’m really frustrated as I know I had the pace for the podium if not the win, but I really had to use up the best of my front tyre running deep into the turns to stay with the front four,” said Hopkins.

“Staying in the draft on the straights was pretty tough and once the front tyre went off, we were tucking the front everywhere and I couldn’t risk crashing. Yeah it’s a tough one. Through the fast flowing stuff I could hang with them no problem but on the straights we were losing out.”