Canterbury’s Tom Ward impressed on his Bike Devil Kawasaki debut in the Bennetts British Superbike Championship last weekend.

The 26-year-old was without a team and a ride until a last minute deal was done to ride in the BSB Championship and boy did he take his chance.

He rode three strong races on his debut and finished in 16th place in all of them which was just a place outside of the points positions. Which represents a solid start to his BSB career.

It was a big ask for the former Superstock 1000 rider but he approached the weekend with maturity and tackled everything that was put in his way. During practice and qualifying, he continued to improve his times and his grid position did not reflect the effort he put in. He did lap after lap and made progress in every session.

Speaking after the weekend, Ward said: “It was a really good weekend; we progressed quite a bit over each session and made some big improvements on the bike. It’s great to be working with Pete and the whole team; it was great to be working with someone with so much experience.

“It’s been really positive to get one round under our belt and extremely excited to get to Silverstone and hopefully now we’ve got used to the bike we can take a step forward, mix with the faster riders and get in the points.

“I’m really grateful for this opportunity and look forward to working with the Bike Devil team for the rest of the season.”