Heading back to Silverstone after a very wet Official British Superbike Test, Hickman was feeling positive for a good weekend ahead with his new teammate Josh Brookes.
Friday was the first time the FHO BMW team had ridden their new M 1000 RR in dry conditions. Peter covered over 60 laps during FP1, 2 and 3 ending up with an overall lap time of 53.642.
Qualifying found Hicky down in P11 with a qualifying time of 53.299, however, that was less than 0.26 from the front row!
Race One 22 Laps
Hickman got away with Haslam, Vickers and Iddon and looked strong until lap 9 while following Haslam, his bike was covering Peter with all sorts of fluids causing him to back off in case he crashed on the fluid. This lost Hickman his momentum and the ‘tow’ of the front group.
Finding himself back down to 14th. Hickman got himself back into his rhythm and crossed the finish line in P11.
Hicky’s fastest lap was 53.674 on lap 8, the 9th fastest lap of the race.
Race Two 30 Laps
Peter started P9 and was looking to make up for yesterday’s race result. But, after a mechanical caused him to have a huge crash in the warm-up on Sunday morning, the bike had to be completely rebuilt and was only just finished before the start. After only two laps, Hicky had to retire to the garage with electrical issues.
Race Three 30 Laps
After setting no time in Race Two, Peter found himself at the back of the grid in P24 to start race three.
A solid start, Hicky had made up 9 positions on lap 1 and after several laps of strong consistent lap times found himself on the back of the leading group. Jostling with Vickers and Iddon after battling through to P12 Hicky was having brake problems so had to settle for P12 at the finish. Still an excellent comeback from P24.
Hicky’s fastest lap was 53.537 on lap 6.
Peter Hickman:
“Silverstone was always going to be hard work as we haven’t had any dry testing, the first time out was Friday.
Up to qualifying and I was fairly happy with where I ended up and only 0.26 off Josh, is not a lot and I went faster than I have ever been around here before. Overall a positive first weekend, even if the races didn’t turn out quite as planned.”
“The crash in the warm-up session was probably the most unusual crash I’ve ever had in my career, and it unfortunately really destroyed the bike. The bike demolished itself and the boys did a great job to get it back together again for the race, but going to the grid there was some sort of misfire, which we thought we had fixed on the grid. I then went for the warm-up lap but it actually got worse, so I came in we then thought it could have been the quick shifter so we disconnected it and I was just going race without the shifter, which is possible, it’s hard work and you’ll never be as fast but it is possible.”
“I went out from pit lane and it wasn’t that at all, there was something else going on as the bike was still misfiring, so I ended up pulling out of the race which was really disappointing. I then started the final race from the back row of the grid and I had an interesting first lap, I think I moved up nine places! I was feeling really strong actually and by lap 20 I was only two seconds off the leader, which was a great achievement from the back row of the grid.”
“Afterwards the team told me that my times were faster than the leaders for the majority of the race which is really positive to know, but really frustrating at the same time! Silverstone has been one of those weekends, it’s round one, we can’t win the championship here but we can certainly lose it and we definitely did not lose it, so let’s move onto Oulton Park and see what happens.”
Hicky
SILVERSTONE – ROUND ONE