Superbikes season opener to forget for Buxton ace Christian Iddon

The Saturday opening race saw Iddon hit with technical issues, bringing his Panigale V4 R home at the back of the field, while the second race the following day ending in a DNF after Iddon was taken out unhurt on lap five by Charlie Nesbitt at Luffield.

A lack of race laps resulted in a poor grid position for Sunday’s final race, with Iddon having his work cut out.

But he was at least able to finish his race in a points-scoring position in 11th.

Iddon said: “It was 100 pre cent not the not the weekend we'd all hoped for - expected actually, not necessarily hoped for, but what we expect. And it was a million miles from that. In free practice everything was actually going quite well. Qualified so-so, but I just got really bad start for the first race and was involved in a little bit of a difficult first lap.

“That that made things difficult and then we suffered the technical issue, so I finished, but finished last in the first race which was annoying, and that gave me a really bad grid slot for the second race.

“And then I got took out really early in the second race, which gave me a horrendous grid slot for race three. It was just a snowball effect.

“The last race I did the best I could. I'll always do that, but it was only good enough for 11th at the flag which is really not acceptable.

“But we lost a lot of information from the full-length race, the race before, and then the bike started to do things on the last four-five laps that I sort of wasn't really ready for.

"We look to regroup, move onward and upward to the next round.”

Iddon and the team now look ahead to Round Two at Oulton Park later this month.

Otherwise the opening meeting provided an exhilarating start to the season as three different race winners, representing three different teams and manufacturers celebrated a race victory.

Iddon has remained a Ducati rider this year, taking the seat vacated by Tommy Bridewell, who has joined the PBM Ducati team, and returns to the manufacturer which helped him reach the front of the BSB grid between 2020-2021.