Harworth: Hipwell out of luck again as mechanical gremlins strike at Brands Hatch

A series of problems saw him finish 16th in the sprint race and retire from the feature race.

Hipwell was once again hoping to break into the top 10 once again things looked promising after the two Friday free practice session where he was 12th fastest in both.

But qualifying the next morning was badly hampered by a constant oil-leak problem, and be hampered by another rider on his fastest lap, which left him 20th on the grid for the 12-lap sprint race that afternoon.

The team managed to fix the oil leak in time for the race.

After a poor star, Hipwell found speed and moved up from 21st to 16th by lap seven before the engine on his Triumph began to have problems and he dropped back to 17th, where he stayed until he just managed to get past the Yamaha of David Allingham on the last lap to finish in 16th position

The engine issues were fixed in time for the following day’s feature race in while Hipwell again started from 20th but hoping to kake ground and pick up some championship points.

He made a superb start and was up to 15th and in the points by the end of lap seven.

But, just as he was looking to make inroads to the riders in front of him, on the ninth lap the CDH Triumph stopped for no apparent reason with a dead engine and his race was over.

The only consolation of the weekend was that in the feature race on Sunday Hipwell did lap the Brands Hatch GP circuit in under 1.30.