Tuesday, September 11 2012

The Showdown beckons and history was made last weekend by Tommy Bridewell and Supersonic BMW at Donington Park as they claimed a Title Fighter position for the first time and then followed it up by scoring a fourth place to claim BMW's best finish in the MCE British Superbike Championship. Now the team are aiming even higher as they bid to become the first BMW team to score a podium finish.

The Supersonic BMW team joined the championship from the world stage at the start of the season and since then have been building up to become potential podium finishers and Bridewell believes it is now only a matter of time before they take that next step forward. As the championship heads to Assen for the first round of the Showdown the team will be drawing on all their experience from the world stage in a bid to fire themselves up the order and close the deficit to their Title Fighter rivals.

Bridewell said: "I had never been as nervous as I was at Donington Park; I was comfortable with the bike but the 20 laps were going to make such a difference. I wanted to do it, not only for myself but the team who have put in so much hard work to get us there. At the start of the season I was thinking about just being in the top ten and now the team have moved on to the point where we have exceeded that expectation massively - we are up there getting fifths and sixths and then a fourth at Donington. I think the races last weekend we could have potentially been able to challenge for a podium. I went from thirteenth to fourth and maybe if I hadn't needed to try and get through the field we could have challenged Tommy for third as we were gaining on him towards the end of the race.

"Looking at Assen I think this could be a good round for everyone to have a real good battle as the last two rounds have been our toughest yet in terms of us being behind everyone else who had tested which won't be the case there.  We have a 35 point disadvantage to Hill but if we can keep pushing over the last few rounds then who knows what might happen. One mistake by someone else can put us in contention if we are consistently aiming for those podiums and that is what we need to do now. I will be giving 110% to get us on the podium and further up those championship standings."