The seventh round of the British Supersport Championship took place at Thruxton over the weekend of 10th and 11th August and drew in a bumper crowd to the famous 2.35-mile circuit.
Rhys Irwin secured tenth place in his opening race of the weekend for Gearlink Kawasaki which he followed up with a ninth place in the longer feature race on Sunday. His teammate Cameron Dawson had a good weekend at the team's home circuit. He finished twelfth in his opening race and a well-deserved eight in his final race of the weekend race.
The opening free practice sessions for the Gearlink Kawasaki riders took place on Friday in scorching conditions Dawson ended the day with the fifth-quickest time 1:18.091 seconds, while Irwin finished tenth, 1:18.387.
It was a strong and close fifteen-minute qualifying session between both Gearlink Kawasaki riders on Saturday, Dawson qualified in ninth while Irwin qualified just 0.022 seconds behind in tenth.
Both riders made good starts in their opening 10-lap race of the weekend, unfortunately, the race was red-flagged due to an accident.
The race was re-started with a new race distance of five laps.
Throughout the shortened race both Irwin and Dawson were involved in a battle for eight position, Irwin crossed the line in tenth while Dawson finished twelfth.
After the race Dawson was able to pull the positives out of the result and commented " As the race went on, I managed to set faster and faster lap times".
The grid for Sundays feature race was determined by the rider's fastest lap in the sprint race. Irwin started the 18-lap race from eighth while Dawson started from eleventh. Both riders initially made good starts and held on to their starting position during the opening laps of the race. During the later parts of the race, both riders were involved in a six-way fight for eighth position.
Due to the fast-flowing nature of the Thruxton circuit, the riders swapped positions multiple times. By the end of the race, Dawson had worked his way to the front of the group and finished eighth while Irwin was right behind him in ninth.
After experiencing a similar problem to the previous round with the bike Irwin commented after the feature race: "We’re struggling big time with an ongoing problem which has really affected my riding. It’s another top 10 today and some good points, but it’s not where I want to be.
"Despite this, I’d like to say a huge thank you to the team for their hard work. They are throwing literally everything at the bike to resolve this problem and with limited track time, it’s been tough."
Coming off his first points-scoring finish at the previous round Dawson went one better at Thruxton by claiming his first top ten of the season, he said: "I couldn’t be happier with how our weekend went.
"We made substantial progress throughout our sessions, and the bike felt absolutely awesome. A massive thank you to the Gearlink Kawasaki crew for all of their support this weekend. I had an unreal feeling on the bike from the start of practice and I couldn’t have really asked for any more"
The eighth round of the Supersport Championship will take place at Cadwell Park over the weekend of 25th and 26th August, all the teams and riders will be looking to add more points to their championship.
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