British Superbikes, Thruxton: Vickers - “It went as planned”

Ryan Vickers left the last round at Brands Hatch on a high after picking up a perfect set of pole and three race wins.

The OMG Grilla rider came down to earth quickly as he was off the pace on Friday so needed a trip through Q1 to earn his fourth on the grid.

• 2024 British Superbikes: Thruxton - Qualifying Results
• 2024 British Superbikes: Thruxton - Race Results (1)

The first stage of his comeback was complete, but the Yamaha rider soon had more problems on his plate as he slipped back to the latter half of the top ten in the opening laps.

The pace of the race out front meant that was not the issue it could have been, with the front riders all in sight distance of Jason O’Halloran, the then race leader as he slowed the pace to save tyre wear.

That fell into Vickers plans nicely:

“The race - it went as planned , you know - I just sat in the pack, didn’t rush, you know. People coming past me, but I just didn’t stress - I just knew I just needed to save my tyre and not use any extra effort to pass anybody, so that was my plan and it went perfectly, um almost - except for one position!

I could see the gap wasn’t increasing, so I just kept my cool and focused on riding the bike properly and not spinning the tyre, so yeah I was really, really happy “.

The final laps made for spectacular viewing, something which the #7 was proud to be a part of, with his run through to be one of many leaders in the closing stages just one of many highlights, with the race only decided at the Club chicane and the subsequent run to the line:

“It was an absolutely wild race, probably the best race I’ve ever been a part of, so yeah it’s super cool to be on the podium in a race like that.

Coming onto that final lap in second and then losing loads of places and then coming into Church in like fifth, sixth - and I was run outside and managed to get an amazing drive out of Church, and the same as Jason just said - I did have loads of tyre at the end and I think if I was able to get through and get a clear lap on my own I might have been able to pull a bit of a gap”.

Vickers will need that pace again tomorrow as the slow nature of the race sees him in 16th on a mainly topsy turvy grid, but his charge forward today could indicate a repeat is on the cards for race two if the race is tight again:

“I think the maximum I went back to - about tenth maybe something like that, eleventh and I still imagined there was more people behind me - it just seemed like a never ending train of riders, so when you’ve got a group like that, the slipstream effect is so great, its very difficult to break away”.