Hickman happy after his successful switch

After his success at the North West 200 he was at Brands Hatch to contest the third round of the British Superbike championship, where he recorded a seventh and an eighth place finish to his two races.

It is difficult to switch from racing at over 200mph on public roads in Ireland to a more sedate pace on the short and twisty Brands Hatch Indy circuit, but the rider - who lives near Cadwell Park - appeared to take it in his stride.

In the three-stage qualifying session Hicky completed the first session in a comfortable seventh place, but just missed out on going through to the final stage with a 10th place in stage two.

The top nine riders go through to battle it out for pole position but Hicky was just a fraction of a second away from that to start the first race from the head of the fourth row in 10th place.

He said: “Not a bad day today.

“Happy with P10 on the grid for tomorrow and to record my best ever grid position on the Indy circuit plus a PB of 45.7s.”

Hicky completed the first lap in eighth place before passing John Hopkins and moving into seventh position.

Although he got within 0.2s of Michael Laverty he was unable to make a pass on him and remained in seventh place throughout the 30 lap affair to claim nine championship points.

He began the second race from the third row once again, but this time was boxed in at the first corner and was ninth on the first lap.

He dropped a place on lap three and remained in that position until the midway stage when he took up ninth place once again.

With five laps remaining he passed Luke Mossey and crossed the finish line in eighth position to pick up a further eight championship points, bringing his total haul for the day to 17.

Hicky said: “I’m really happy with today.

“The shorter Indy track has never been one of my favourites, so walking away with two top eight places is fantastic – if you had told me that at the start of the weekend I would have taken it.

“We made some changes to the bike ahead of race two which was a definite improvement so we know what direction we need to go with on the bike at Knockhill too.

“We now have a few days to rest before heading to the Isle of Man, which couldn’t be any further from this weekend!”

Hickman returns to the Isle of Man for the TT races next week where he will contest the Superbike and Superstock races on the JG Speedfit Kawasaki, plus the Supersport events on the Trooper Beer sponsored Kawasaki.

He will also contest the Lightweight race for John Burrows on the Cookstown B.E. Racing Kawasaki E R 6.