After an indifferent start to the season, any hopes that Tommy Bridewell had of his luck changing were dashed as once again he missed out in round two of the Italian Superstock Championship at Monza at the weekend.

After the opening round of the series was washed out a couple of weeks ago, the 20-year-old from Etchilhampton near Devizes in Wiltshire was hoping to build on the disappointment of a non-points scoring finish in the Superstock 1000 FIM Cup at Assen last weekend, which he is also contesting, but having taken delivery of a brand new Yamaha R1 from his Lorenzini by Leoni team, Bridewell spent much of the weekend setting up the machine.

After qualifying well down the order as a result, Tom stormed through to hold a top ten placing when the race was red-flagged and in the re-run, he got another great start but an off- track excursion and then taking evasive action to avoid a fallen rider meant he scraped home in 18th place at the flag.

"I must say that the new bike is so much better than the old one and straightaway, I was two seconds a lap faster so it was just a case of getting everything set up and now I feel we are making real progress," said Bridwell.

"I can count myself very unlucky as I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and the result doesn't tell the true story. We now have a good base setting for next weekend's Superstock 1000 FIM Cup race back here at Monza so hopefully, my luck will change and we can get a decent result."

The Italian track will host the third round of the Superstock 1000 FIM Cup and Bridewell is hoping to add to his points in the opening round in Spain when it gets underway at 10.40 (GMT) on Sunday.