Alfreton's Craig Fitzpatrick stormed to his second successive victory in the second round of the British Supersport Cup at a damp Oulton Park on Monday.
His impressive performance earned him eighth place in the British Supersport Championship.
Fitzpatrick had struggled to find his pace earlier in the weekend and was only able to post the 13th fastest time in Friday’s free practice sessions, though
he was the best placed of the Cup competitors.
As the heavens opened on Saturday for the first qualifying session, he again struggled to lap as quickly as he knew was able, managing only 18th overall and third fastest in the Cup.
For the afternoon’s second session, Fitzpatrick made some alterations to his BLDS Yamaha in search of more speed. As the track had now dried, the morning’s wet times were irrelevant. Fitzpatrick showed his talents and posted the sixth fastest time, the fastest in the Cup.
The race was run in damp, but drying, conditions, making tyre choice key to race success.
Fitzpatrick and his team made the right choice and banked on the track to dry quickly. After an impressive start, he was up to fourth place, and building a gap on the following riders.
To his misfortune, the race was stopped due to an incident involving another rider and was restarted.
This gave everyone the chance to re-evaluate the track conditions and took away the advantage of those who had chosen to run on dry tyres.
Following the restart, Fitzpatrick again got away with the factory backed riders, although he was unable to make the break and brought his machine home in an impressive eighth, first in the Cup.
Fitzpatrick now lies eighth in the Championship standings and leads the Cup standings by 10 points.
He will be back in action this weekend at the re-run Brands Hatch event which was cancelled due to snow four weeks ago.
The full article contains 324 words and appears in Alfreton Chad newspaper.
