Having posted strong times during the dry test and practice sessions on Friday and Saturday, GBmoto duo Chris ‘Stalker’ Walker and James Ellison experienced their first wet laps on the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R Superbike, when heavy rain arrived at the Kent circuit on Sunday. With no prior settings, the team worked hard during the final Free Practice session to give both riders a strong bike for qualifying.

As conditions continued to worsen throughout the day, qualifying saw a number of the top riders crash out, including both Chris and James. Walker took a small tumble in the first qualifying session, however was able to recover and take fourth while James had a heavy crash in Q2 before setting a flying lap, meaning he would start the opening race in 16th.    

With the weather improving vastly for race day, the opening race of the 2014 MCE British Superbike Championship race saw the GBmoto duo secure fantastic starts, with Walker running in second and James sixth by the end of the opening lap. To the joy of his legions of fans, Stalker took the lead ahead of Josh Brookes on the second lap while James was involved in a five-way battle for the final podium spot.

A red flag on lap 18 saw a lengthy delay as the circuit was cleaned following a big oil spill along the main straight. By virtue of their positions at the time of the stoppage, Chris and James would start the 12 lap re-run from pole and third respectively. After grabbing the holeshot, Walker was pushed back to second on lap five, where he and James ran in team formation until the chequered flag to take GBmoto Racing’s first ever BSB podium.

With race two seeing the warmest conditions of the weekend so far, James would start from pole position with Chris in third. After slight changes in between races, both riders enjoyed strong starts running in 3rd and 4th however the changes didn’t work for Chris as he was unable to match his position from the first race, claiming fifth at the line. After a race long game of cat and mouse, Ellison finished in third, claiming another podium for the GBmoto team and moving him to second in the Championship.   

After a visit to the medical centre during Qualifying, James Ellison wasn’t expecting two podiums, “What a fantastic day and I can’t be anything but happy to walk away with two third places! I’m not the biggest fan of the Indy circuit, but it’s been great to get back out and racing again. The team have been working really hard all weekend, and all winter actually, so it’s mega to reward them with the first podiums for the Lloyds British GBmoto team. Obviously Qualifying didn’t go to plan for us, but we were able to overcome that and can leave Brands Hatch very happy.

The bike is still relatively new, and there are still some things we’re learning and need to work on but we’ve shown this weekend what we can do. It’s important not to get carried away though as it’s a long season but I believe we’ve set ourselves up to be genuine contenders. I can’t wait to get back out at Oulton now, it’s one of my favourite circuits and I hope we can pick up where we’ve left off here!” 

It was a dream start for Chris Walker too “The fact I feel a little disappointed with fifth in that second race, when I came here thinking a fifth would be an amazing result, goes to show just how well the GBmoto team is going! We made some changes between the first and second race which didn’t quite go to plan but we still did a fantastic job.

That first race was epic really, we had a great qualifying and although I was fairly confident we could have a strong result I definitely wasn’t expecting to do so well. The bike is great, the team have worked so hard over the winter and the fact they achieved a double podium in their first race with Kawasaki shows that. We can now move to Oulton in really good shape.”

Team Principal Mark Smith-Halvorsen said, “I was definitely a little nervous before this weekend but the team have done an amazing job on all four days, even when things went a little wrong in qualifying. I had a feeling before the first race that we could do something special. Chris and James went out and proved that GBmoto are genuine contenders for 2014. We have now been to five different circuits and the bike has performed at all of them, so I’m now in a place where I’m confident that the bike will do well wherever we go.

I just want to take this moment to thank the entire GBmoto team, they’ve worked incredibly hard over the winter months and it’s not been easy at times but we’ve walked away from Brands with three podiums to be second and third in the Championship, so they should all be really proud. I also want to thank our sponsors as without them we wouldn’t be here and they’ve shown us a lot faith over the winter and I hope we’ve repaid that today.”

More:

• Check out our gallery from Brands Hatch
• Find out when the next round of the BSB is
• Browse our motorcycle tyres