Richard Kerr set to ride at Brands Hatch after strong show at Laguna Seca

Richard Kerr landed two point-scoring finishes at round four of the MotoAmerica Superstock 1000 Championship at Laguna Seca, California at the weekend.

The performances means that the Kilmacrennan man maintained sixth place in the title standings and this weekend Kerr will ride the Cheshire Mouldings BMW for TAS Racing, deputising for the injured Rory Skinner, at round six of the British Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch.

Having opened in 1957, Laguna Sece held rounds of the MotoGP World Championship and World Superbike Championship at various times between 1988 and 2019 with its most famous corner ‘the Corkscrew, seen as one of the most challenging turns in motorsport due to a drop in elevation of some 59ft (18m) as well as its blind crest and apex on the uphill approach.

That meant it was going to be, potentially, the most difficult circuit for Kerr to learn on the American calendar with the opening practice session seeing him post the tenth quickest time. The two subsequent qualifying sessions saw him reduce his best lap time by almost a second and that enabled him to take 11th place and line up in the middle of the fourth row.

Saturday’s race was held over 14 laps of the 2.238-mile circuit and a solid start enabled Kerr, on the AMD Motorsport Honda Fireblade to complete the opening lap in 12th place and by lap three he’d worked his way up to ninth.

Lapping quicker than what he had done in qualifying, it would prove to be a relatively lonely ride for Kerr, but he duly took the chequered flag in ninth place.

Sunday’s race was again held over 14 laps with good conditions once more at the Californian venue and although he again lapped quicker than before, setting a fastest lap of 1’26.975, he had to settle for 11th place on this occasion.

However, he was only six seconds adrift of seventh and the results from the two races moved him on to 71 points to maintain sixth place overall in the championship standings.

In addition to the Superstock 1000 races, Kerr also contested the two Superbike races where he finished 15th on each occasion to score more points in America’s premier series. Having contested four of the six rounds to take place so far, the 24-year old now sits in fifth place overall in the Superbike Cup Championship.

Kerr said: “That’s Laguna all done and it’s definitely a class track! I didn’t find it too hard to learn and with the exception of the Corkscrew there wasn’t any blind corners.

“I felt like I picked it all up in the first session and was happy enough but from that point on I struggled to improve my lap times – I got quicker each time I was on track but remained 1-1.5s off the front runners.

“I felt strong in some parts of the circuit but was losing too much time in others and that meant the results weren’t as good as I would have liked.”