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The Buildbase Suzuki team and Billy McConnell are hoping to clinch this year’s National Superstock 1000 title, as they head to Brands Hatch for the final round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship this weekend.
With McConnell currently sitting second in the championship standings on his GSX-R1000R, 10.5 points off the top spot with one race to go, the affable Aussie will be looking to add a seventh win to his season’s tally on Sunday, hoping to secure the championship after taking the title fight to the wire.
In the blue ribband superbike class Richard Cooper is going into the season’s final round brimming with confidence. He took two race wins and the Stars at Darley accolade at Darely Moor last weekend, coming off the back of his best BSB result of the year at Assen, where he finished fifth after battling for the podium.
Bradley Ray heads into the weekend with the ink barely dry on a freshly-signed contract that sees him remain with the team into 2019, and is looking to finish the year strongly and build for another title assault next season.
Billy McConnell, “It’s going to be a tense weekend, but to be honest I think the pressure’s off when you’re chasing and is very much on the one with the lead to throw away, and we’ll be doing our best to apply as much pressure as we can. But we won’t approach the weekend any differently. We’ve been fast everywhere this year, and won at Brands earlier in the season. So we’ll do our thing, work towards winning the race, and see what happens at the end of the day.”
Richard Cooper, “Obviously for us this weekend is about ending the season strongly and finishing on a high. We’re pretty confident of being able to do it, too. At the last round at Assen we obviously had our best finish of the year, but we also learned even more about where we can go with setup and tyre choice, so hopefully that’s something we can carry into this weekend. We also had a good run out at Darley Moor. It’s one of my favourite events of the year, and we managed to come away with the two wins as well. We’ve now got three more chances to get some strong results to cap the year off.”
Bradley Ray, “It’s good to be going into the final round with the deal signed. It means all we’re doing is focussing on our races, on improving the bike, and having a good weekend to finish the year. We’ve had a good season; it’s only my second year on a superbike, our second year together as a team, and we’ve won a couple of races, been on the podium, set pole at a few different places, and been fast pretty much everywhere. We know where we’ve struggled so those areas are very much the focus and if we can work on them, if I can improve further as a rider and we can be a little more consistent, next year can be a very good year. But first the focus is on finishing this season well and giving ourselves something to smile about going into the off-season.”
For more information on Suzuki’s GSX-R1000R, click here.
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