Layt leaves it late to claim season's best

Norwich racer Matt Layt was in action again at the weekend in the latest round of the British Superstock 1000 Championship at the technically challenging Lincolnshire circuit of Cadwell Park.

His luck did not appear to be improving as his Suzuki GSXR1000 stopped on the opening lap of the free practice session with the same mystery electrical fault that had prematurely ended Layt's last race at Oulton Park two weeks before. Things were no better in the first qualifying session when an oil pipe burst again on the opening lap.

With two sessions gone, Layt had not managed to complete a lap and due to the rules prohibiting having a spare bike, the team had to build another from spare parts overnight to enable him to ride in final qualifying.

As Layt had by now had no track time, the pressure was on to qualify as best he could in a single session as most of the other riders had already put in 30 laps or more. With 44 riders looking for one of 36 places on the grid, Layt once again lined up for the shoot-out race which, after a great start, he managed to lead until finishing in second place.

In the championship race, Layt started from the tenth row of the grid in 28th place and having lost a knee-slider on lap two he had to alter his riding style which dropped him even further down the field.

Layt gamely improved his lap times and as his confidence grew he made his way steadily up through the field to post his best result of the season so far with a superb 17th place.

Layt said: 'What a weekend. I just suffered with losing so much track time, but was pleased enough with the result. My Formwise/Astro Suzuki team worked really hard and by the race we had a good set-up but starting so far back meant it was going to be tough.'

Layt will be looking for better luck at the next round of the Championship which will takes place at the British Moto GP event at Silverstone on June 18 to 20.