Last weekend we were at Oulton Park for Round 2 of the British Superbikes championship and on a slightly different layout due to the bank holiday Monday!
FP1 started the weekend bright and early for the team, with Sam and Finley out first thing in Junior Superstock at 9:00, in the sunny and dry conditions. Sam completed a total of 11 laps, with his fastest lap time of the session being clocked on lap 9 as a 1:42.931. This time put him P3 in the timings and 0.419 off of P1. Finley completed 7 laps throughout the first session and put in a 1:46.659 as his fastest lap time on lap 5. With this time he finished the session P26 and was 4.147 off of P1. Next out was Joe in National Superstock at 11:50, under cloudy skies. During FP1 he completed 11 laps in total with his fastest time being put in on the final lap of the session. His fastest lap of the session was a 1:38.541 which put him P18 with a 2.145 between himself and P1.
The FP2 sessions for the day got under way at 13:35 when Sam and Finley took to the track for the second time of the day, this time under cloudy skies but still with a dry track. Sam completed another 11 laps during this session with his fastest lap time being a 1:41.250 which he put in on lap 10. With this lap time, Sam improved on his time from FP1 by 1.681 seconds, seeing him take P2, with the gap to P1 being 0.680. Finley completed a few more laps in this session, seeing him complete a total of 13 laps. During FP2 Finley managed to shave off 4.613 seconds from his fastest lap in FP1, with his fastest lap of FP2 being a 1:42.046 which he put in on lap 11. This saw him move up several places to take P10, with the gap between himself and P1 reducing by a few seconds to 1.476. The final session of the day for the team was National Superstock FP2 for Joe at 15:35. During this session Joe completed 12 laps, with his fastest lap of the session coming on lap 4 and, like with Sam and Finley, was an improved time from the first session of the day at 1:37.787. Despite remaining in P18, Joe reduced the gap between him and P1 by 0.497 from FP1 to be 1.648.
Qualifying is the only session for us on Sunday and Joe was out first at 13:00 for the National Superstock session. Despite the cooler temperatures than the day before, Joe managed to make good progress and clocked his fastest lap time, 1:37.919, on lap 8 of the 10 laps that he completed. As a result he qualified P15 ahead of the race on Monday and was 2.072 seconds off of P1. At 18:00 qualifying got underway for Sam and Finley. During this session both of them completed 11 laps in total with Sam setting his fastest lap, a 1:40.819, on lap 5 of the session. This time saw him qualify in P5 for the first race on Monday, putting him 0.925 off of P1. Finley’s fastest lap time of the session, was put in on lap 10 and was a 1:42.250. This saw him take P15 in qualifying and was 2.356 off of P1. Despite the changing conditions from Saturday to Sunday, all three riders continued to make good progress ahead of the races.
First up, bright and early, on Monday were Sam and Finley for their warm up session at 8:50. The skies were still clouded over but the temperatures were slightly warmer than on Sunday for qualifying. Sam and Finley both completed 6 laps, with their fastest laps being put in on the final lap of the session. Sam’s fastest lap of warm up was a 1:40.882 which saw him take P1 in the first session of the day. Finley’s fastest lap was a 1:43.149. With this time he finished warm up P11. Joe went out for warm up at 9:10 and also completed a total of 6 laps. His fastest time of the session was a 1:37.959 which he put in on lap 4. As a result, Joe finished warm up P11 and 1.135 seconds off of P1.
This weekend Sam and Finley had two races, the lights going out for the first race at 10:40 under overcast skies. The first lap of the race was very eventful, with several riders crashing out, one, unfortunately, being Finley. Due to another crash needing a little longer to be cleared up, the safety car came out for two laps. Sam quickly moved up to P4 from the start and battled throughout the race with Dan Brooks for P3 and came across the finish line to claim P3 and his first ever BSB podium! Sam’s fastest lap of the race was a 1:40.063 which he completed on lap 11 of the 12 lap race. For their second race of the day Sam sits on P3 and Finley on P21.
The next race of the day for us was Joe’s where the lights went out at 12:30. During the race there was a small difficulty which had a small impact on the result. However, Joe managed to come across the line to take P14 and some important points! His fastest lap of the race was a 1:37.151 which he put in on lap 5 of the 14 lap race. This was yet another improvement of his lap times from earlier in the weekend. The final race of the day saw the lights go out at 14:18. Both Sam and Finley had good starts and made progress throughout. Unfortunately, a few laps in, Finley crashed again, however his fastest lap was a 1:42.446 which shows more improvement from the weekend. Sam was running in P3 for the majority of the race and held onto P2 for a while until he lost the front into T1 on the last lap. Despite this, his fastest lap of the race was a 1:39.942 which was his quickest lap of the entire weekend.
Many positives to take from this weekend and we go again at Donington Park in a few weeks!
Sam Laffins: ‘We have a lot of positives to take away from the weekend. I have proven to myself that I am capable of running at the front now. Roll on Donny and let’s see what we can do!’
Finley Arscott: ‘It was a difficult weekend for me, but that’s racing and everyone has bad days. Nevertheless, I still built some confidence to go there again later this year and have some better results.’
Joe Talbot: ‘My weekend went well, finishing in the points again. The position didn’t reflect the steps we made and we had a little problem in the race, which hindered us a little. But it was a mega weekend nonetheless, roll on Donny!’
