Ben Currie wins the British Supersport Feature Race at Navarra
The season opener at Navarra was one of highs and lows for Ben. A fast crash early on in testing required his bike to be completely rebuilt, and then not adhering to a missed penalty cost several positions in his first race. But Ben was not to be outdone and rolled out for the final race determined to bring home a strong points haul for his Oxford Products Racing Ducati team.
“The opening British Supersport round at Navarra in Spain proved to be an absolute rollercoaster weekend, but definitely a good one. I came out of the blocks pretty strong at the Thursday - Friday test. A little bit of dodgy weather halted proceedings on the Thursday, but Friday morning we were able to get out and get after it really.
I hit the ground running and really got down to an awesome pace straight away, feeling at one with my V2. Unfortunately, in the afternoon I had a little mishap through the 6th gear, 160mph / 260 kmh Turn 1, where I had a little bit of a miscalculation on the brake lever and grabbed a handful too much. Down I went, and the bike absolutely destroyed itself, which is to be expected at those speeds. So, I missed that afternoon which was unfortunate, because there were some really good laps to be had in the good conditions. But the boys worked tirelessly all night to basically build me a brand-new motorcycle heading into the race weekend.
It's not ideal to start the race weekend on that note, going into the first free practises in qualifying with potential gremlins on the motorbike as it's completely untested and untried having been completely built in an evening. Fortunately enough for me the Oxford Products Racing Ducati team are amazing at what they do, and they built me a near-perfect motorcycle. It was just down to me to gain some confidence and get the belief back that I had at the R&G Donington test, and the first day test in Navarra.
We managed to nick a solid qualifying on the Saturday afternoon, securing the middle of the front row in second place. I was actually really happy with this because I was just not comfortable on the bike, and that was all down to me just losing a little bit of my edge not wanting to make another mistake for the boys to then have to fix again. But that qualifying put us in good stead for the two races on Sunday.
So, I started the Sprint Race from second on the grid, got off to a good start but made a couple of little silly mistakes on the first lap, which ran me wide and put me back in the pack. But I was able to make a few really good passes and work my way through up until second place. But unfortunately, I came together with another rider which saw me issued with a long lap penalty.
I genuinely wasn’t expecting any sort of penalty, and missed the info on pit board as my focus was on regaining the places I lost earlier on. I finished a strong second at the flag, but I got demoted back to eleventh due to the penalty that I didn't serve correctly.
Thank you to my team who immediately met with Race Control to question the decision. However, ride through penalties in BSB are not subject to an appeal process, so there is no option to undo or appeal this after the race. Race Control believed it to be the correct decision and it’s their opinion that counts.
With the Feature Race, I had to just stay calm, not get frustrated about the previous position demotion, and focus going into that final race to reward my guys with a solid result to get our season kick-started.
I rode a mega race and extracted everything I could out of the package, but unfortunately, we just weren't quite strong enough to beat Luke around that track. I feel like it had a lot of strong points for his bike and maybe a little bit less for me, so it was a little bit of a seesaw in battle, and he rode a great race. I pressured him all the way and got a bit of Lady Luck at the end. Luke had a little mechanical on the last lap, and I managed to nick the win. I’m over the moon, and we’ll take them how they come.
I’d like to say a huge thanks again to everyone in my team, all working endlessly to achieve what we did. The hard work paid off and I really can’t thank the guys enough.
We move on now to the R&G Official Test at Oulton Park at the beginning of May ahead of the race there. I’m really looking forward to getting stuck in at that circuit. Oulton’s quite local to me, and I’ve had solid results there in the past there, I can’t wait.”