Richard Kerr maintains second spot in Championship

Richard Kerr consolidated second spot in the Pirelli National Superstock Championship with a fourth place finish.

At Snetterton, the Kilmacrennan man, who rides for the Dumfries-based AMD Motorsport team, impressed again.

Picking up from where he left off in previous rounds, the 23-year old was immediately on the pace around the 2.96-mile Snetterton 300 circuit.

Friday’s free practice sessions saw Kerr post the third fastest time on the factory-prepared CBR1000RR Honda Fireblade.

Saturday’s qualifying session saw him lap two tenths of a second quicker and it meant the Kilmacrennan rider lined up for Sunday’s 12-lap race in fourth place and at the head of the second row.

With his customary good start, Kerr immediately gained a position off the line and for the first half of the race, no less than six riders disputed the lead with Dan Linfoot, Alastair Seeley, Alex Olsen, Billy McConnell and Joe Talbot all doing battle.

Less than a second covered them at one stage but as the race entered its second half, gaps began to appear.

As Linfoot and Olsen broke away to fight for the win, Richard found himself fighting with McConnell for the final podium position.

In the end, it was fellow Honda rider McConnell that prevailed, and Richard had to settle for fourth place on this occasion.

The result moved him on to 141 points, now 21 points behind race winner Linfoot.

Kerr said: “Both practice and qualifying went well but I knew then we didn’t have the pace that Dan or Alex did and running with them in the race was going to be hard.

“I thought I could get third though and am disappointed to have missed out, but I ran wide with three or four laps to go and that allowed Billy by.

“I wanted to try and have a go on the last lap, but he had it covered and so I had to accept fourth on this occasion. Fourth’s obviously better than a DNF and we’ve made good improvements with the bike whilst the gap to Dan is still only 21 points.

“We’ve two races each weekend at the next couple of rounds so we’ll look to claw back the gap there.”

The sixth round of the series takes place at Brands Hatch, Kent on July 21-23.