Peter Hickman engine “runs no problem” after oil leak causes huge BSB delays

Peter Hickman says his BMW M1000 RR’s engine has “no problem” after a technical problem at the Oulton Park BSB led to two hours of delays.

The schedule had already been shuffled for Sunday (5 October) to accommodate bad weather expected on Sunday morning. That meant BSB Race 2 was the first of the day at 13:15 and took place only an hour after Warm Up, but it lasted only one-and-a-half laps before Hickman’s bike suffered a terminal problem.

The red flag that resulted lasted for over two hours, with Race 2 only restarted at 15:42 on Sunday afternoon.

With smoke pouring from the bike, the assumption would have been that the problem was located in the engine. However, Hickman, who didn’t take part in the restarted Race 2, explained that the engine has “no problem”.

“The engine is absolutely fine right now, it runs in pit lane no problem,” Hickman told TNT Sports on the Race 2 grid ahead of the restart.

“There’s a bracket – brackets don’t seem to like me this year, one way or another – that holds the oil pipe into the oil cooler and unfortunately it broke and blew the oil pipe out of the oil cooler. 

“That’s the reason I went for so long without actually realising there was oil coming out of my bike – I actually didn’t know, there was no engine problem. 

“So, unfortunately, we’ve actually put down a lot of oil. Super-disappointed for not only ourselves but of course the rest of the guys and girls here, we’ve really delayed a lot of the day today which is really unfortunate. 

“But just a small bracket, no one’s fault, it’s just the way it is sometimes.”

A revised BSB schedule was issued just before the start of Race 2 which has seen two of the day’s races cancelled and several shortened.