Ryan Vickers comes from “a load of sessions behind everyone” to stunning third at Donington Park

Ryan Vickers finished a tough weekend at Donington Park with a standout performance which took him to the podium in the final race of the Showdown meeting.

The hope from a double win at the opening round at Navarra felt like a distant memory as Ryan Vickers perfect start to the title hunt faded heavily, now mathematically unable to win before his departure for World Superbikes with the Motocorsa team.

Off the podium in the first two races in the return to Donington Park, taking seventh from eleventh on the grid in the opening race on day one, to eleventh in the sprint, Vickers has been undeniably off his best on the OMG Grilla Yamaha.

• 2024 British Superbikes: Donington Park (Showdown) - Race Results (2)
• 2024 British Superbikes: Donington Park (Showdown) - Race Results (3)

Vickers revealed that a lot of grit and determination was needed to achieve today's rostrum result as the issues which saw him have a lacklustre showdown start last time out at Oulton Park continued:

“A lot of determination and not giving up really is the only answer to that. There has been a lot of problems and stuff like that - it’s uh one of those things we can’t change it now - but we managed to solve some of the problems in the morning warm-up this morning”.

As it took time to work out the changes needed the #7 had been on the backfoot from the start, feeling behind his rivals and needing to play catch up:

“The first race was sort of basically like FP2 for us. Like first dry session. Trying to make the bike as good as we can for this final race and the guys did a great job.

We were just a load of sessions behind everyone, you know - we’re starting from scratch again. So it’s really nice to come back with a podium to finish the weekend off.

I’m also really disappointed because I know that this is where we should have been every single race, you know, we should have been battling for the win and it’s just one of those things - can’t change it now”.

With the problems now addressed Vickers is confident he can feature more heavily in the final round when BSB heads back to Brands Hatch to finish the season in October, at a circuit where he won all three races earlier in the year:

"Same as Oulton, you know it’s just… we had a few issues so we’re finding our feet again and we should be right up the front again at Brands Hatch, back on full form, like we normally are”.