Peter Hickman: “A week ago we were probably not going to race Oulton Park BSB”

Peter Hickman says there was a chance he was not going to be able to race the Oulton Park BSB at all as a result of delays getting his Superbike built.

The 8Ten Racing rider finished 13th in Race 1 and 16th in Race 2 at Oulton Park, but the bike was barely ready for the start of the weekend on Saturday afternoon as a result of the delays the team has struggled with in getting parts to the UK from Europe over the winter.

“The first time I’ve ever thrown my leg over that Superbike was Saturday afternoon,” Hickman said, speaking to Crash.net after the cancellation of BSB Race 3 at Oulton Park was confirmed.

“The boys literally finished [building] it about half-an-hour before the first session so that’s how tight it was.

“Really happy, actually, with the weekend. Obviously, we’re racers, we want to be at the front, we want to be winning, but we also have to be very realistic: a week ago we were probably not even going to be here!

“So, we managed to get everything together right at the last minute and the team’s worked really hard.

“The bike’s feeling pretty good to be honest, just learning, step-by-step, a little bit at a time, including even the last race – I went faster than I did in qualifying.

“So, just making those progressive steps, one little bit at a time.

“It’s coming, we just can’t do it all in one weekend, it’s just not happening, everyone else is here racing and we’re here testing – that’s probably the best way of explaining it: we’re still testing, and it will be like that for a couple of rounds at least.

“I’m happy enough with where we ended up: nearly my fastest lap of Oulton Park, I’m only a tenth off what I did last year on a bike I knew inside out.

“So, overall, I think it’s a very positive weekend and looking forward to getting back to Donington.”