British Superbikes, Knockhill: Home advantage helps Skinner to podium return

Rory Skinner was back in action on a day of comebacks - his seeing him return fully from the concussion he sustained after his crash earlier in the season at Oulton Park.

The Scottish rider was happy to be back in action at a point in the season where he felt it was not too late to have an impact:

“We came into the weekend just wanting three finishes coming back after the concussion, didn’t really know where I was quite going to be after obviously missing almost five races now, due to injury.

You know, at this stage in the season everybody makes quite big jumps, so to be back where we are - I’m very happy - it’s always nice, special to do it at home.

It was quite an odd race, you know, we were on the grid changing tyres, something I’ve not done in a while, so yeah, here we are - a trophy, bottle of champagne and some smiles - so I think all in all, it's been a good Saturday!” 

• 2024 British Superbikes: Knockhill - Qualifying Results
• 2024 British Superbikes: Knockhill - Race Results (1)

The Cheshire Mouldings BMW Motorrad rider was able to use his extensive lapping of Knockhill to ride tighter, smoother lines and be confident in his overtaking places in the tricky conditions after the rain delay:

“The conditions were difficult, they were changing every lap. The track was getting drier, but equally there were still some really wet patches, so on slicks you know about it when you went ever so slightly off the grippier stuff.

I just kind of tried to make things calculated tried to make the moves in places where I felt strong and I knew I could get the job done, and yeah - the hairpin was one of those in today’s race, just pounced on the opportunity and I felt like I had a little more pace than the group”.

Once up to second Skinner went on to display that pace, making inroads into Bridewell’s lead, but he was too far up the road to be caught in the shortened race:

“I saw that Tommy had kind of cleared off at the start and when Jason started coming back and Andy started coming back, I just started to chip away at things and hit my markers and, I mean, when I came over the start/finish line, we did a 47, I couldn’t quite believe it because the track was really green and there wasn’t an awful lot of grip out there and obviously, with the wet patches it wasn’t what I expected.”

The #11 claimed a podium on the changing track from an eighth place start, but his pace in race one sees the Scottish rider start from second on the grid for tomorrow’s sprint.