Hickman and the FHO Racing BMW Team enjoyed positive results in their FIM Superbike World Championship debut at Donington Park.
Friday and Saturday’s free practice sessions were spent working with their electronics system, to understand Hickman’s BMW M 1000 RR ready for qualifying.
The sessions went well, apart from the electronics and Hicky was losing too much time in the last sector, so he turned back to BSB mode to bring him back up a few places.
The sectors were as follows during practice:- Sec 1 – P10, Sec 2 – P5, Sec 3 – P12 and Sec 4 – P24.
In Saturday’s opening 23-lap race, he started and finished in 22nd position as he battled with a few remaining electronics gremlins. As a result, he started 22nd on the grid for Sunday morning’s Tissot Superpole Sprint race.
After a strong start, Hicky took one lap to settle in and started making his way through the field, with some strong over-taking into McLeans to cross the line 16th and just outside the points.
Starting Race Two, again from 22nd, Hickman could still make further progress as he fought his way through to 19th at the chequered flag, finishing 3rd out of the 5 BMWs on the grid.
Peter Hickman:
“It has been a tough weekend which is exactly what we expected, it would’ve been nice if we had been where we are now with the electronics at the start of the weekend, we’d have been a bit closer but overall it’s been a really good event.
“The second two races were better today, in the sprint we had a bit of a battle and finished 16th – nearly a point but not quite – and in the second we were 19th, which was still an improvement from Saturday.
“The whole team has come together, my team-mate Ryan [Vickers] has been here and even though he wasn’t riding he’s been out spotting and helping along with some of his mechanics. This was Fayes and the FHO Racing Teams’ first time taking part in an International event at WSBK and to do that in the first 18 months of a team starting is very impressive.
A massive thanks to the team, the sponsors and everyone that came to help out.
It’s been a great weekend with no pressure and I’ve enjoyed it.
Onto Brands Hatch!”
HICKMAN AND FHO RACING TEAM FINISH BACK-TO-BACK RACE WEEKENDS