Richard KERR, Kilmacrennan, Honda – AMD Motorsport
Richard Kerr and the AMD Motorsport team got their 2022 Pirelli National Superstock Championship campaign underway at Silverstone at the weekend and it proved to be a solid meeting with a best finish of tenth and points in both races.
Continuing with the Honda Fireblade for the new season, albeit with a few changes from 2021, Richard had a solid start to his weekend in Friday’s free practice sessions but improved considerably in qualifying on Saturday. Indeed, improving his time by almost three quarters of a second, the Kilmacrennan, rider posted the 12th quickest time to line up on the fourth row for the afternoon’s race.
However, scheduled to be held over 22 laps of the 1.64-mile National circuit, a third corner crash saw no less than six riders go down and the race was duly stopped and re-started over the shorter distance of 16 laps. The 21-year old made the most of the re-start and slotted into ninth at the end of the opening lap.
Two laps later he was up into eighth but the fiercely competitive racing saw him shuffled back to 12th at half race distance. There was drama on the 11th lap though when second placed Lewis Rollo crashed and took race leader Alex Olsen with him, the net result being Richard was promoted up the order to tenth where he duly finished for six hard-earned points.
Starting Sunday’s race, held over the full 22 laps, from 12th and row four once more, Richard completed the opening lap in 14th place and although he briefly dropped back to 15th, he was back up to 13th by half race distance. More points were certainly on offer and although 16-time Isle of Man TT winner Ian Hutchinson overhauled him, Richard duly crossed the line in 14th place to add two more points to his early season haul.
Richard Kerr: “I got a bit lucky with Saturday’s result with a couple of riders ahead of me crashing and I’ve been struggling a bit with the new shock we’re running. We didn’t get much testing done so have had to be doing it this weekend but we’ve been making improvements all the time and how the bike ended was totally different to the set up we started with. It’s just a question of understanding it fully but we’re moving in the right direction.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m happy with eight points from the two races but I’m not gutted either and there was just one part of the track that I was really struggling. I just couldn’t get the bike turned quickly enough to get on the power on corner exit and that meant I was losing a couple of bike lengths each time. It’s been a solid weekend though and good to score points in both races and get our season up and running so a big thanks to all the team; we all worked really well together so once we get the bike dialled in more, I’m confident we’ll be higher up the leaderboard.”
Fraser Dykes, Team Owner: “Considering where we started out on Friday, it’s been a solid weekend and good to get two points-scoring finishes under our belt. Mixed weather in testing has meant it’s taking a bit longer than we would have liked to get the bike set up but we’re going in the right direction and we’ve got some good points on the board. Richard and new crew chief Simon (Bleasdale) are working really well together and we’ll be looking to improve further at Oulton Park.”
The next round of the series takes place at Oulton Park on 30 April-2 May.
