Howie Mainwaring Smart will be racing this weekend’s MCE British Superbikes at Oulton Park with his ‘last minute’ team, Tsingtao WKbikes Performance, after MH Kawasaki pulled out of this round.

The rider has announced that he is ‘done’ with his former team, and hopes to progress with his sponsors for future rounds but remains on a ZX-10R.

“There has been a few little difficulties, basically funding issues, and last night we found out that we possibly would not be running today and I have managed to scoop my side of the garage and keep my lads together," said Mainwaring Smart, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the circuit.

"Between Nick Morgan at MSS Performance, Dave Tyson at Tsingtao WKBikes and my sponsor, Walker Signs, they have managed to team together a little package and we managed to get to out for the second session after building the bike.

“To be honest I am going to say for the record I am pretty much done with MH Kawasaki and I am going to go my separate way and do my own thing with my own sponsor MSS Performance and also Tsingtao beer. I think that could be best for the future.

“We will be doing a full weekend and hopefully for the future it could lead on for different things for the other rounds.”

The Aylesford rider is pleased that he managed to complete a practice session this afternoon, and is now happy with Nick Morgan and his team. He understands that having three races this weekend is going to be difficult, as there are still a few issues on his newly-built bike.

“I feel a bit settled, now we have got a session out of the way. With Nick Morgan I have always felt pretty comfortable and happy and now he has actually got involved because he has to and he will sort the bikes out, and if I am happy then I will do OK.

“It is going to be a difficult one with the three races because everything has been so last minute. We have a few small issues with the bike but if we get the race out of the way tomorrow and get some points clawed back – then for the races on Sunday I would like to get into the top ten, or to get a seventh and improve on last time, that would be nice.”

MH Kawasaki released this statement today: "The MH Kawasaki team are devastated to be missing Oulton, unfortunately this is due to a delay in sponsorship that only came to light yesterday evening so again we are even more sorry for the late notice to all those affected. We are delighted to see Mainwaring still managed to get out on track and we hope everyone has a fantastic weekend."