Peter Hickman
Sorry to miss you guys last month. I hadn’t forgotten about you, I’d just been that busy that before I knew it, I missed the deadline and the mag had gone to print. Anyhow, I’m back and just like that, the 2021 British Superbike Championship has drawn to a close. It’s a job to know where to start... it’s been an epic season, and although we’ve all missed the real road racing this year, the BSB job has gone pretty damn well. We made the showdown, which was goal number one, and we round off the year with fifth place in the championship, which I’m pretty proud of – especially for Faye and the all-new FHO Racing team. We were the highest-finishing BMW in the championship and, I’ve got to say, it’s always nice to beat the factory support team.
Taking it back to just before showdown at Silverstone and it didn’t go completely to plan, mainly because we all had to use the harder SC0 Pirelli slick, which hasn’t worked well for me recently. I’ve really gelled well with the new SCX tyre that we weren’t not allowed to use for that round. We had a big tumble in race one but thankfully managed to get through the weekend okay and make it into the showdown. The next round was Oulton Park and, if I’m honest, I expected a little more from myself after a strong opening round there. I had a couple of fifths and a fourth, which isn’t bad, but when you’re fighting for a championship it just wasn’t enough. If I thought that was bad, it got a whole lot worse at Donington. I finished one race all weekend, and the conditions were terrible... imagine taking a 220hp+ superbike on an ice rink – that’s an accurate account. I got my wrists slapped for speaking my mind, but sometimes that’s the only way the circuits organisers do anything about it. In the only dry race of the weekend, I was scrapping for a podium and had the pace to win, but my chain snapped. It cut my seat unit in half and whipped the back of my leg... it’s a wonder it didn’t cut my leg off! Not only did it put a hole in my bike, but that was the end to my fight for the championship victory. At Brands Hatch, we had a really strong dry pace but the rain in qualifying didn’t help, and I had to start from 14th. We ended up with a triad of fifths in the races, and although we got closer to the front in each race, that’s where we we’re at. I suppose that’s quite fitting with ending up fifth in the championship.
Next up, I’ve got the Ohvale World Cup to look forward to, held at the Valencia MotoGP on November 9-10. We are taking the top three riders from the UK FIM championship over to compete against others from all around the world, which is a mega opportunity for those boys, and it’s brilliant for the series back in the UK.
I’m really excited to say that I’m staying with the FHO Racing Team in BSB again next season. We’ve got Alex Olson staying on the stocker also, which is great, and there is some more exciting news to come in the following weeks. Watch this space.