Luxton’s a winner on return to racing
FOLLOWING a four month delay due to COVID-19, Stockport’s Christian Iddon finally got his hands on the factory-supported Ducati Panagale V4 R that he’d been so desperately looking forward to riding since signing for the Visiontrack Ducati team at the close of the 2019 season.
Behind closed doors, as a result of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship’s elite status, Iddon claimed eleventh on the grid for the opening race of the 2020 season at Donington Park in Leicestershire – less than one-second covered the top twelve riders.
Race one, and Christian was taking no prisoners, climbing to seventh on the opening lap and keeping himself involved in the lead group ahead. By lap ten the former Supermoto Champion had climbed to fourth, pushing teammate Josh Brookes for third position, but would ultimately cross the line just 0.7secs off the final podium position.
Starting from sixth in race two, Christian quickly climbed to third and looked settled in to claim the final podium spot until he unexpectedly lost all sensation on the bike and tumbled down the order to finish eighth.
“The bike changed massively” explained Iddon, was closing in on the leaders, but I made a minor mistake which let a couple of others past. From then onwards, I fell away and couldn’t manage a final push for the podium.
“Two fourths and an eighth isn’t what I want but we can work with those results. It’s three finishes, loads of data and no crashes so there’s room for improvement and my feeling with the bike is brilliant until the late stages of the race, so we just need to work on that and we’ll be stronger.”
Christian added: “It’s really sad to not have spectators yet. Miss you all but hope everyone is enjoying the show from home.”
Elsewhere, Stockport rider Ben Luxton converted Pole Position in to victory in the Pirelli National Superstock 600, aboard his JR Performance Kawasaki, at Donington.
“After strange times during COVID 19 not knowing if we would get a race season at all. Round one couldn’t have gone any better for me and the JR Performance Kawasaki team, we qualified on Pole and then converted to a race win, perfect weekend. Massive thank you to personal sponsors,” added the BSB Championship JR performance and my Ben. The next round of comes from Snetterton in
Norfolk over the weekend of 21-23 August.