Aylesford’s Howie Mainwaring-Smart made progress in the latest round of the MCE British Superbike Championship at Silverstone.

Two point’s finishes meant that Mainwaring-Smart made strides forwards from previous rounds of the season.

He had been targeting top ten finishes and came close to that in race two, and hopefully this will set him up for the season finale at Brands Hatch.

He qualified in 19th place for the opening race but had gained five places by the end to claim 14th and went better still in the second race later in the day.

Starting from 16th and the sixth row of the grid, he was inside the points throughout the race and, aided by posting his fastest lap of the weekend, he shadowed teammate Luke Mossey in the latter stages and followed him over the line for 11th place.

Giving his thoughts after the weekend, Mainwaring-Smart said: “After four no-scores in the last five races, I’m pretty happy with how the results have gone. We made a few wrong decisions in qualifying though which left me way down on the grid and dented my confidence as I couldn’t get the tyres to work for me.

“We turned it round on Sunday though and I gained a lot of confidence from my first race result and with a few more adjustments for race two, I was able to ride much more how I wanted to. When the tyres went off, I was still able to lap strongly and it was a good, battling 11th place finish so I’m looking forward to getting back into the top ten at Brands.”

Howie has had good success around his local track of Brands Hatch winning there during the showdown just last season, there is no reason why he can’t repeat that success in two weeks’ time.

Images courtesy of www.pspimages.co.uk