Lydd’s Bradley Ray is gearing up for the penultimate round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship, as the series heads for its annual visit to Assen in the Netherlands this weekend. 

Ray will be looking to re-join the title fight while his team-mate, Richard Cooper, will be aiming to have a say in the destination of this year’s championship and hopefully assist Ray in the process.

Omens are good and in turn confidence is high going into the weekend. The team took its first victory with the all-new GSX-R1000 at Assen in 2017, turning the brand new machine into a race-winner in its first year. Richard Cooper also got his first taste of the GSX-R1000 in Superbike-spec at the Dutch circuit last year; the then National Superstock 1000 championship challenger making a wildcard appearance and coming away with two solid points-scoring finishes.

Armed with even more knowledge, data, and development time under their belts, both team and riders are keen to build on past results and get back into podium contention. 

Speaking ahead of the weekend, Ray said:“I’m hopeful we can have another good weekend this weekend. We’ve been fast but just not quite had the results since Cadwell for one reason or another, despite being on pole at Silverstone. So we’re clearly fast enough, we just need to regroup here at Assen and build through practice and qualifying, and try and come away with two podiums, hopefully wins.

“Of course, it’s going to be difficult to win the championship now, but we’ll keep fighting and really there’s no pressure on us, so if we can go out and enjoy the racing, the results should come and we’ll see where we end up.”

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