Ryan and the OMG GRILLA Yamaha team were looking forward to Round 5 at Snetterton, Ryan’s home race in the Bennetts British Superbike Championship.
On Friday, he was eager to get out onto the 2.9-mile circuit for his first run in Free Practice 1. Ryan wasn’t happy with how the bike felt so the team made some changes ready for FP2. His confidence grew setting 3 laps under the 1:48 mark, with his fastest lap at 1:47.734.
Ryan made his mark in qualifying on Saturday, setting a 2m:05.868s lap time +0.199s ahead of nearest rival Billy McConnell in very wet conditions.
Starting Race One in P1, Ryan got a mega start, running full wet tyres, but with a drying track, the riders behind, with different tyre strategies, started pulling him back in. The race was red-flagged due to an incident on lap 9 when Skinner crashed out.
On the 5-lap restart, Ryan had wheelspin as he went to shift to second gear and ended back in 15th by turn 1. Finding it hard to see the riders around him due to the spray, he kept focused and moved back up to P9.
On Sunday, the day started dry and during the morning warm-up, Ryan was in the zone and had the settings where he wanted.
In the sprint race, Ryan got away well and moved up to 3rd place. However, another red-flag incident and light rain halted his progress and he didn’t get such a good start in the restart and got pushed back into a pack of riders. He could not make his way forward as effectively as he did earlier, finishing P7.
In the last race, he kept up himself at the back of the leading pack until half-race distance when a small mistake whilst defending his line against Irwin cost him a place, frustrating, but more points on the board for Vickers.
It wasn’t quite the homecoming race weekend that Ryan had hoped for, but it was three strong rides to secure his first points since Oulton Park.
Ryan Vickers
Race 1: 9th | Race 2: 7th | Race 3: 8th
Championship: 8th (92 points)
“It’s been a tough weekend really for me at Snetterton. I had hoped for a little bit more but three top tens were all I could get this weekend. Race 1 I was unlucky with the red flag and then had the wheel spin off the line on the restart. Today I just struggled a bit too much when the tyre dropped off which is a bit frustrating. But, I gave it my all and left everything out there and we’ll come back stronger with the lessons learnt here this weekend at Brands Hatch in two weeks.”