Hayfield's Christian Iddon confident ahead of Showdown opener

After a season of contrasting fortunes, Hayfield’s Iddon secured his place in the top eight who will fight for the crown over the next three rounds, starting with Paul Bird’s Lake District-based team’s local round this weekend.

Iddon will be hoping for more success at what he considers to be his local track. He currently occupies third in the title race aboard his factory-supported VisionTrack Ducati Panigale V4 RR, having taken two wins already this season.

He is just 45 points adrift of series leader Jason O’Halloran and arrives at Oulton Park with an enviable record having finished second in the last five races to be held there.

However, three of those second places came back in June when he had to follow O’Halloran home on all three occasions so will be looking to turn the tables this time and get that elusive victory.

Iddon said: “We are returning to a track we’ve already raced at this season and the earlier meeting at Oulton Park was a really good one for us.

"I’m hoping we can replicate that podium success and even challenge for some wins.

"It’s the first round of the Showdown so it’s now all to play for and the championship positions have been condensed dramatically, although I am ruing some of the lost podiums we could have had this year.

"It’s vital to have a good, solid first round of the Showdown so I’m really looking forward to it. But also given the points deficit it is also really important to try and stay ahead of Jason and Tarran [Mackenzie – second in the standings] as many times as possible, and that is really the goal.

"We have some great settings that work on the bike there so we’ll be dialling them back in and see how we feel and hopefully we can take some big points away from this round again.

“Personally, I am going all out to try and win as that is what we are here for. As always I am not going to do anything differently to what I ever do, but we know the bike goes well there as we have seen.”