Hopkins Salvages Valuable Points at Oulton Park

Luca Hopkins remained firmly in the fight for the 1pMobile National Junior Sportbike Championship despite a frustrating weekend at Oulton Park, producing two determined recovery drives after a difficult qualifying session left him on the back foot.

The Team SBR powered by DKS Direct Drilling rider arrived in Cheshire sitting second in the championship and immediately looked competitive, finishing Friday's free practice second fastest, just 0.905 seconds behind championship leader Marley Mackenzie.

The team opted to make changes to the bike ahead of Saturday morning's qualifying session in search of further improvements, but the adjustments failed to deliver the desired result. Struggling for confidence, Luca qualified seventh for the opening race before the decision was made to return to Friday's setup.

Returning to the original setup transformed the bike for Saturday afternoon's opening race.

Another difficult start dropped Luca to sixth by Cascades, but his race pace quickly began to show. He worked his way past Ben Joliffe before making a decisive move on Laken Payne into Island Bend to climb into fourth.

Attention soon turned to Luca Wilkinson ahead. Luca found a way through into Druids, only for Wilkinson to respond at Lodge. Over the closing laps the pair exchanged third place several times, with neither rider prepared to concede the final podium position.

The battle continued onto the final lap when Wilkinson attacked once more into Old Hall, pushing Luca towards the edge of the circuit on the exit. The fight also brought Joliffe back into contention, creating a four-way battle over the closing corners.

Luca crossed the finish line fourth, missing out on a podium by just 0.055 seconds after one of the closest finishes of the weekend.

"Qualifying was disappointing because the changes we made to the bike just didn't work, so we started further back than we should have done.

"Going back to Friday's setup made a huge difference and the pace was there in the race. It's frustrating to come away with fourth because I felt we had enough speed to be on the podium.

"I was a bit disappointed with some of the riding standards during the race. I don't think that's what we should be seeing at this level.

"A big thank you to everyone at Team SBR powered by DKS Direct Drilling, all of my sponsors and everyone supporting me."

Sunday's second race offered another opportunity to challenge at the front.

Ryan van Nieuwkerk's technical problem on the warm-up lap promoted Luca to fourth on the grid, although another average start left him fifth through the opening corners. He soon settled into the leading group before taking advantage of a couple of small mistakes from Ben Joliffe to move into third at Lodge.

With clear track ahead, Luca began reducing the gap to Marley Mackenzie and Laken Payne before running into the gravel at Lodge on lap six, dropping from third to 14th.

After the race, the team identified a braking issue which had left Luca with very little front brake heading into the final corner. Despite the setback, he rejoined and recovered to 11th with passes on Kylan Shuttlewood, Rory Creith and Jamie Hanks-Elliott over the closing laps.

Reflecting on the weekend, Luca said:

"It was a frustrating weekend because I felt we had the pace to fight for podiums in both races.

"We found the problem after qualifying and the bike felt much better from Race One onwards. In the second race we were running comfortably in third before I lost most of the front brake going into Lodge. Unfortunately that put me into the gravel and ended any chance of another strong result.

"The positive is we're still right in the championship fight and we've shown we've got the pace to run at the front. We've already identified a few things that we'll change before Thruxton to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"A big thank you to everyone at Team SBR powered by DKS Direct Drilling, all of my sponsors and everyone who continues to support me."

Despite the setbacks, Luca leaves Oulton Park level on points with Ben Joliffe, with countback placing him third in the championship as the series heads to Thruxton for the next round.