Double top-six helps rebuild rookie’s confidence at Donington BSB

Three non-scores at Assen had dented the confidence of Joe Talbot ahead of the Donington BSB, but two top-sixes on Sunday helped to bring some of that back.

Talbot had finished ninth in Saturday’s Race 1 after having to go through Q1. 

He arrived at Donington after crashes and bike issues left him without points at round nine, and so needed to rebuild some of his confidence, which had dropped compared to the middle part of the season where Talbot had become a consistent top-six finisher.

“Coming off Assen was obviously tough because I had a couple of crashes and whatnot and didn’t really get any results – we had the pace, though,” Talbot told Crash.net after BSB Race 3 at Donington.

“We’ve come here and, coming off some big crashes, obviously lost a bit of confidence, but gained it right back. 

“Unfortunately, we didn’t really get as many laps as we needed on Friday, but the team’s worked really hard over the weekend, I’ve worked hard on track and we’ve come away with three top-10s which is good, a ninth, a sixth, and a sixth. 

“So, overall it was fairly solid, pace increased every time out on track and definitely made roads in improvement throughout the weekend, so can’t really moan.”

For a while in Race 2 Talbot was able to run similar lap times as the front group after Rory Skinner and Leon Haslam crashed out, creating some space in front of the BSB rookie.

“It was good,” Talbot said. “I was behind Brad [Ray] and I did some really good lap times, consistently as well: mid-to-low-1m27s every lap, which was good.

“It’s good riding with them, they ride correct and brought me along. 

“So, just trying to do that, and then Max [Cook], my team-mate, came past me and tried to latch onto the back of him, but those boys had a bit more than me and I couldn’t really match it. 

“So, two top-sixes in the last two races today was all I could really manage.”