Althea Honda's Tommy Hill reckons he is having to over-ride his Fireblade just to get somewhere near the current World Superbike pace but this is causing him to make costly errors.

The likeable youngster is also still having trouble with tyre grip mid-race and a mystery engine problem which started with vibaration during Qatar's race two compounded his woes.

"After a good start in race one I pushed very hard and I found a fast pace. I was able to get past some people but I was losing rear grip and I just could not run the pace of the guys in front of me. I had a bit of a battle with Haslam in race one but riding over the limit meant I made a couple of small mistakes and he passed me," said Hill.

"On the fifth lap of race two I felt some vibration coming from my engine and then it stopped working. I’m sure my team will work to understand and solve the problem, but once again bad luck came back to haunt me."