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The Buildbase Suzuki team heads to Thruxton this weekend for round six of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship, with Danny Kent looking to build on the improvements and progress made at the previous round at Brands Hatch, and all at the scene of his maiden BSB podium in 2021.
Last year, in his first season with the Buildbase Suzuki team, he took a third place finish at the Andover circuit to cap what was a strong weekend for the former Moto3 world champion. Sadly, he would miss the remainder of that season through injury.
After also picking up an injury early in this campaign, the 28-year-old made significant strides at the previous round, and with confidence building, he’s aiming to improve on those performances this weekend.
Danny Kent, “I’m excited to get started this weekend. I obviously had my strongest weekend here last year and taking my first BSB podium was a big moment, and it’s a track that I really enjoy. After the injury at Donington this year we made some good steps forward at Brands and had our strongest weekend of the year so far, and I think we can make another step this weekend. With Thruxton though there’s always the issue of tyre life, and in over 30°C temperatures this weekend it’s going to be really hard on tyres, so we’ll need to work on making them last. But I’m looking forward to getting started.”
Christian Iddon, too, saw his season suffer a setback through injury; a broken arm at Knockhill stalled the progress he’d been making throughout the season to that point, progress that saw him inside the Showdown places after Donington Park.
After three non-scores in Scotland and a tough weekend at Brands Hatch, where he was forced to ride through the pain barrier following another crash, he’s looking to rediscover the form that saw him edging closer to the front earlier in the season.
Christian Iddon, “The arm’s still not awesome. It’s made progress, but it’s not how I’d like it to be, but to be honest I think we’re going to have to wait until the end of the season to fix it properly. So for now we’ll get on with it. It was a hinderance at Brands, especially after crashing again, but I don’t think it’ll hinder me this weekend. It gets a bit sore, but I’m not worried about soreness, and the strength’s coming back. So the aim’s to get to the level we were at before Knockhill, and push on from there because 100% we were going in the right direction. This weekend’s going to be interesting. Thruxton is such an anomaly that you don’t have to be the fastest rider to win, though it obviously helps. But you have to be clever, look after your tyres, and then in the final third of the race you can see how it’s shaping up. I was on the podium last year though, so was the bike with Danny, so hopefully we can combine and repeat that.”
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