It was a day of first’s for Tyco BMW’s Christian Iddon, during the opening MCE British Superbike round at Silverstone. The Stockport native placed his S1000RR on to the podium, not once, but twice and before today he had never reached the dizzy heights of the BSB rostrum, and managed to do the double with two third-place finishes this afternoon.
In race-one Iddon joined team-mate Michael Laverty inside the top three, making it the first time that Tyco BMW have had two rider’s both on the podium at the same time.
The former World Superbike contender was not completely happy with his form in the opening race, and wanted to go for the softer rear tyre compound - but was convinced by his team that the SC1 would be better suited, and he agreed that his crew in the end made the right decision.
“I was weak in a couple of areas that we need to work on and if we can work on those we will have a good set up. In race one we didn’t go on my prefer choice of tyre - we went on the harder rear but I wanted a soft but it was a good decision by the team, but I am happy with my first podium in BSB,” said Iddon at the circuit.
“I just tried to manage the race but kept doing a rubbish job at it, and I went into the last lap in fourth and then I kept Luke behind, but it is a good start to the year.”
In the second race Iddon obviously wanted to experience the same feeling of stepping on to the podium once again, and in a repeat performance bagged P3 and is now third in the overall standings behind garage buddy, Laverty.
Iddon added: “I am really happy with the set up and the team. We were seventh on the grid in the second race and I was quite a long way back and I felt a lot better out on the bike. I tried to peg my way forward and I got to about five laps to go and felt I had the pace to challenge for the win, and the pace that Hicky was running at the front was really surprising.
“I kept seeing the green light on my dash which meant that he was going fast and to see that light that late into the race was impressive and well done to Hicky and Shakey by the way they rode the race in the front. I genuinely felt with five laps to go it’s my race, but maybe I shouldn’t have counted my chickens so soon.”