British Superbike technical chiefs have moved fast to scotch any rumours that Graeme Gowland and his WFR team may be using an illegal engine after the Evo man placed seventh fastest overall in this afternoon's second free practice session.

The Hexham man was 1.8s slower than John Hopkins on a bike with significantly less horsepower than the FIM-spec bikes but still managed to lap quicker than Josh Brookes, Alex Lowes and Ryuichi Kiyonari to name but three.

He was also three-quarters of a second faster than team-mate Glen Richards over their fastest laps but speed trap times show he is significantly slower than the FIM Superbikes and only one mile per hour faster than Richards.

"There were some raised eyebrows over Graeme's laptimes both this morning and this afternoon, so we wanted to stop the cheating rumours before they started. The bike has been on the dyno and we have downloaded all the data from their Motec software and nothing has found to be illegal. He is just riding the wheels off the thing," said series director Stuart Higgs.

Richards added: "He is just so fast on corner exit. By the time the Superbikes proper have caught him on the long straights here, it is time to brake."