Richard Kerr bags valuable points at Oulton

Richard Kerr earned more valuable points at round nine of the Pirelli National Superstock Championship at Oulton Park over the weekend.

The event proved to be a more challenging affair for Kerr and his Dumfries-based AMD Motorsport team but a brace of top ten finishes meant big points were scored as they retained their fifth place overall in the championship standings.

The weekend started steadily for the Kilmacrennan rider and the team with wet conditions in Friday’s opening free practice session seeing the 22-year old sit things out, as did many other riders, but with better conditions in the afternoon, a lap of 1’37.673s on the factory-prepared CBR1000RR Honda Fireblade put him in tenth overall on the leaderboard.

Rosses AC pair clock new marathon PBs in Berlin

Helen McCready and Shane O'Donnell recorded new marathon bests on Sunday as Eliud Kipchoge smashed the world record

Conditions were perfect for Saturday’s solitary qualifying session and although he slipped back to 17th quickest – after a late red flag prevented him from putting in a second flying lap – he was confident he could gain places in the afternoon’s 11-lap race despite having to start from the sixth row.

A good start immediately helped elevate him to 12th with another spot gained a lap later and on lap six, he overhauled Joe Francis to move into the top ten, which is where he concluded.

The strong lap time meant he started Sunday’s encounter, cut from the scheduled 12 laps to ten, from the more advanced position of 11th and the fourth row and that was the position he found himself in at the completion of the opening lap.

This had become ninth three laps later as Orr overhauled Tim Neave although the Yamaha runner found a way back by with two laps to go. Try as he might, Kerr was unable to make a pass and had to settle for his second tenth place finish of the weekend although the points haul from the two races saw him maintain fifth place overall in the championship table.

“It was a tough weekend and we probably never recovered from the red flag in qualifying,” Kerr said.

“I’d only got a time in on a used tyre and so didn’t get a good grid position whilst I was also losing too much time, around 0.8 seconds, in the final sector.

“Everywhere else, I was reasonably ok, but the bike was moving around a lot in the last sector, and I couldn’t ride in the way I wanted. It’s the one track, and sector in particular, where I haven’t made much progress this year.

“The fact that I’m disappointed with tenth shows how far I’ve come this season but, as a racer, you always want more, so that will be the aim at Donington next weekend. I took a podium there earlier in the year so let’s hope both I and the team, who again worked tirelessly this weekend, can be back on the rostrum.”

The penultimate round of the series takes place next weekend at Donington Park, Leicestershire.