Ben Currie racks up another British Supersport win at Oulton Park
Round 2 of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship saw Ben Currie competing at his local racetrack, Oulton Park.
It was another highly successful weekend, with Ben topping the pre-race weekend official test, scoring a second-place finish in the Sprint race, and then going one better on the bank holiday Monday by winning the Supersport Feature Race.
“It was a fantastic weekend at my home round at Oulton Park. And I had a massive amount of support there, right through the whole weekend. It was really awesome to see. The sun came out, it was beautiful weather and the crowds were massive. It’s an absolute pleasure to be racing on a stage like that, and it gave me a really good buzz.
Testing got underway on Thursday and things went really well from the off. We dialled in a setting on the Panigale V2 pretty quickly, and we did some of my fastest ever lap times I've ever done around Oulton Park pretty quickly, so we were very happy with that going into the weekend, with a super strong feeling topping the test. Even so, I've not been overly confident at Oulton. I have had some really good results at times, but ones that maybe were a little bit luckier than others with inclement weather and things like that.
When the weekend got underway, Saturday's weather was a little bit second-hand compared to what we had in the test, and the remainder of the weekend. So, the lap times were a little bit funny because the track provided some crazy amounts of grip in cooler conditions. And they were conditions that we weren't really used to. Going into Saturday, the first session of the day after finishing combined P2 in practises, I managed to qualify middle of the front row, second on the grid. I was pretty happy with this because I only missed out on pole by under a tenth of a second.
The track conditions were a lot different, with track temperatures soaring well above 35° which made the track a little bit greasy. However, we were still right down there, on under-lap record pace, which was fantastic.
For the Sprint Race on Sunday afternoon, I got off to a great start, hole-shotted and led the majority of the first half of the race. Unfortunately, I made a slight little mistake out of Druids, hit the grass and last two positions. Being a short Sprint race it was very hard to recover these positions in a short amount of time. And Oulton Park is notoriously difficult to stay in rhythm for a long periods of time as any little mistake can creep in, as it's such a challenging circuit.
However, I dug deep, recovered my form after the little mid race blip, and regathered quite quickly and made a pass on Jack Kennedy on the last lap to nick second place. It was another hard-fought battle all the way to the chequered flag, and I missed out on the win by only a tenth of a second.
We started Monday’s Supersport Feature Race still on the front row but from third on the grid. But that wasn't a problem because I got another fantastic start and led into turn one. I got my head down in the early part of the race with early pressure from Luke Stapleford. But after he exited the race from a crash, I managed to pull out a little bit of a gap and settled into a rhythm. Unfortunately, the gap was closed down mid-race as a I maybe relaxed a little bit too much and Jack was able to close in onto my back wheel, putting in a solid pace to try and catch me. He came past me, and I could tell that I was actually a lot stronger than him around the circuit. So, I managed to get back past him a couple of laps later, to put the nail down and pull away and win by over a second in the end.
I'm very happy with my performance, it was one of my best races in recent times and I managed the race fantastically. The team worked so well all weekend, giving me the perfect package to do a first place and a second place overall in the weekend. And minimising the points gap to the first place in the Championship to just a single point. The feeling is super good going into Donington Park sitting second in the Championship heading into Donington. It’s a track that we've had some really good pace and the bike should work extremely well. I'm excited to get there, get underway, and keep this momentum going forward, and hopefully battle for some more wins.
A huge thanks to everyone that supports me, my sponsors, my team, and everyone else involved. Let's keep going!