Louth rider Peter Hickman scores on British Superbikes return

Having only taken delivery of the new Smiths BMW S1000RR a month ago, the team had worked incredibly hard to get the bike ready for round one.

But the lack of track time compared to their rivals meant they still had a lot of work to do during practice and qualifying around the 1.64-mile National circuit.

With less than two seconds covering the field, qualifying was very close and Hickman began the first 30-lap affair from the seventh row.

It was always going to be difficult to get on terms with the front runners, but Hickman got his head down and began to make his way forward.

He got up into the points in 15th place on lap 26, but was too far away from Dan Linfoot ahead to make further progress.

But when the leader crashed on the final lap, Hickman was elevated to 14th place to pick up two championship points.

Starting the second race from the seventh row once again he began to pick up places and on the final lap he overtook Ryan Vickers to snatch 14th place at the flag.

“It’s been a tough weekend, but it was never going to be easy with the bikes arriving late, and we were hoping to fall on a setting that worked but didn’t,” Hickman said.

“At the same time, we’ve come away with two points-scoring finishes from what was essentially a test weekend and the good thing is that we made progress and moved forward all weekend.

“We’ve learned loads and haven’t been a million miles away so I can’t complain too much and there are a lot of positives to take away.

“The potential is clearly there so we’ve got plenty to work with and build on, so I’m confident we’ll be a lot stronger at round two.”

The next round is at Oulton Park over the May Day Bank Holiday of May 4 to 6.