Josh Elliott’s defence of his British Superstock 1000 title suffered another setback at the weekend when he failed to score any points after incurring an eleven place penalty following a collision with Championship leader Taylor Mackenzie.
Josh was hoping to secure his first win of the season at Snetterton, but a first lap incident that forced Mackenzie off his bike ended any hopes of a podium finish. The contact saw Josh plummet down the field, and although he recovered to cross the finish line in fifth spot, the steward’s penalty meant it was a pointless weekend.
“We were going into turn two on the first lap and it was very crowded and it’s a sharp hairpin,” explained Josh. “I was right behind Taylor and I was lining up to pass him. I had made the pass and I tried to select first gear but it selected a false neutral and with no engine breaking it almost made me speed up. I was left with the option of trying to get through a gap between Taylor and Michael Rutter because I was coming in hot and didn’t want to completely wipe out Rutter. Taylor just kept turning in and the rear of my bike clipped his handlebar and that took him down unfortunately and I dropped back to thirteenth. I battled my way back up to fifth by the end of the race but I was given that penalty and that knocked me back to sixteenth, and left me with no points.”
After a season of race wins last year Josh is still waiting to top the podium on his BMW. He currently lies in fourth spot, but is hopeful the second half of the season will see an improvement in results. “It’s definitely been frustrating and hasn’t gone the way we had planned, but we had a good bike for that race and I’m sure I would have been able to challenge for a good podium position if not the win if everything had gone smoothly,” he said. “Sometimes things just haven’t gone our way. In the first half of the season we didn’t really know where we were with the bike set up. We tried different things but there was a bit of lack of knowledge with the BMW. We are learning more now and I’m sure by the end of the season I’m sure we will have some decent results and hopefully get back up there in the championship. We just have to try and get one result and then build from that.”
With six rounds of the championship remaining Josh is well adrift of the leader, but he still not given up hope of clawing back the deficit to retain his championship crown. “We haven’t given up on it yet,” he said. “Anything can still happen. I was 37 points clear at this stage of the season last year and Alastair Seeley brought that down to five or six points, so anything is still possible. If I am focused on winning races then the championship will hopefully take care of itself.”