Bradley Ray had a tough home round of the British Superbike Championship last weekend at Brands Hatch, with a fourth place finish the highlight.

That fourth place finish was sandwiched between two eighth place finishes, which leaves him third placed in the championship, but quite a distance behind Kyle Ryde and Scott Redding ahead of him.

Saturday’s curtain-raiser marked the on-track debut of the eye-catching Cadbury’s Boost-themed McAMS Yamaha R1, with all eyes on how the striking new colours would fare over 20 laps. Ray lined up on the second row, hopeful of banking a solid haul of points to kick things off.

He made a clean start, slotting into fifth before working his way past fellow R1 rider Christian Iddon for fourth by Lap 4. From there, though, the race began to slip away from him – dropping to sixth by the halfway point before losing two more places across Laps 12 and 13.

Ray crossed the line eighth to close out the opening race, leaving the team with plenty to address before Sunday.

Fast-forward to Sunday, and overnight adjustments to the R1 paid off, with Ray and the team looking sharper in warm-up, going third fastest and serving early notice that a fightback was on the cards for the Sprint.

 Lining up sixth for the 12-lap encounter, he wasted no time making his intentions clear, slotting into the top three during the opening lap before settling back to fourth as the race unfolded.

 Ray kept the pace honest with a string of 1:24s, eventually crossing the line just shy of the podium. It was a determined ride that yielded a fastest lap of 1:24.446 and, crucially, earned him a front-row slot for the weekend’s final race.

 Starting from the third row for the final race of the weekend, Ray made the holeshot to lead the pack through the early stages of Lap 1. He soon slipped to fourth, holding position until a Safety Car bunched the field on Lap 6.

 From there, the #28 rider struggled to regain momentum on used tyres, dropping back several positions despite every effort to push on, ultimately taking the flag in eighth to round off the weekend.

Heading into the next round at Oulton Park in two weeks’ time, Ray retains his spot of third in the championship standings.

Speaking after the weekend, Ray said: “Brands Hatch was a tough weekend for me and the team. We had the raw speed and showed glimpses of what we’re capable of, but it just didn’t translate into the results in the races. We worked hard for a best result of the weekend of fourth – my feeling with the bike in Race 2 was the best it had been all weekend.

“Leaving the circuit this evening, we can confidently say we left everything out there on track. There’s work to do behind the scenes to find some stronger race pace aboard the Yamaha R1, especially on the used tyre. We’ll dust ourselves off, regroup, and go again at Oulton Park – it’s a circuit where we’ve been strong before, so we’ll be pushing hard to find that extra bit we were missing this weekend.

“Big thanks to the team for the effort all weekend, and for all of their work in getting the special edition livery ready too – it was awesome to fly the flag in those colours.”

Images courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/CamipixPhotography