A resilient Bridewell ruled unfit after a Race 2 incident at the French WorldSBK round

Superbike Advocates Racing concludes the French WorldSBK round at the Magny-Cours Circuit with two strong performances by a tenacious Tommy Bridewell, despite a Race 2 crash putting a premature end to his weekend.

After qualifying a very strong seventh in Saturday’s Superpole, Tommy benefitted from a third row start for this morning’s Superpole race. Getting away well when the lights went out, Bridewell maintained his starting position through the first turns. Settling into seventh place, the SBK rookie was setting some of the fastest lap times towards the middle of this short sprint. Digging deep to maintain a strong pace from start to finish, Tommy was able to make up one position on the final straight to close a spirited sixth. With this result, he earned himself a valuable spot on the second row of the grid for the final race of this French round. A very positive outcome, considering the rider was in less-than-ideal shape following his Race 1 crash.

Starting from sixth for the second and final 21-lap race, which ran on Sunday afternoon, the Superbike Advocates Racing rider again made a very rapid start, retaining sixth place. Dropping one position in the first few laps and clearly feeling the effects of Saturday’s crash, Tommy did his best to maintain a consistently fast rhythm. Back into sixth mid-race, Tommy did his best to fend off attacks by Bautista in the final stages but could not quite hold on to his position. On course for an almost certain seventh-place finish, Tommy unfortunately crashed on lap nineteen, bringing this veritable rollercoaster of a race weekend to an end. Transferred to the medical centre, the rider was diagnosed with multiple contusions and suspected concussion and will now focus on his recovery.

After the ninth of twelve rounds, Bridewell holds fifteenth position in the general standings with 63 points scored so far. The next round will see Superbike Advocates Racing in action at the Cremona Circuit in Italy, on 25-27 September.  

Tommy Bridewell (Superbike Advocates Racing #46)
“Not the ideal outcome, and crashes are something we definitely don’t want, but we showed great pace all weekend. The sprint race took everything out of me after yesterday’s crash to be honest. So, I knew today’s second race was going to be a tough one, as the ten-lap race was hard enough, let alone a longer one in hotter conditions. I got a decent start though and felt okay but had quite a lot of vibration from the bike from quite early on. I was struggling to manage that throughout the race and couldn’t really go with the second group. So, I let them go to be honest, as I didn’t have my usual energy. It was strange and quite frustrating to crash with just two laps to go; there was some chatter before I crashed but I’m not sure what that was from. A bit of a disappointing end to the weekend, but some of it comes down to how worse for wear I felt today. The fact we were still able to fight in that top six-seven area is important and now we just need to regroup and bounce back ready for Cremona.”