Finally the race season kicked off at the weekend after the very long winter, it also got off to a good start for me to with a fourth place and win at the opening round at Brands Hatch. Once again I’m riding for Airwaves but this year on the Yamaha and not the Ducati. We’d done no testing up until Brands and so I was feeling a little apprehensive about hopping on a new bike having never ridden it before. Thursday was the first time I got to sit on my new bike and although it felt slightly different I was like a kid at Xmas with a new toy and couldn’t wait to get the session going on Friday.

Although the weather wasn’t ideal throughout the weekend and we probably didn’t get as much track time as we’d have liked due to the changing conditions and also at the minute we only have one bike so we didn’t want to risk doing anything silly and crashing. From the minute I got on the new Airwaves Yamaha it was great and I felt very relieved knowing that it felt so good and it put me at ease a little more as I just wasn’t sure what to expect.

The Airwaves boys have worked all hours over the last few weeks to try and get the new Yamaha as near as possible for my first session on Friday. We had to make a few tweaks to suit my riding style and also the short track at Brands. I was running consistently fast throughout the weekend and didn’t drop out of the top five. Everything was going great and then in the Roll for Pole qualifying session it kept cutting out, it did it twice during the second and last session but I still managed to qualify the Airwaves Yamaha in fifth place on the grid.

The weather was definitely not great, raining and very foggy, we had to wait a while on Sunday morning as you couldn’t even see Druids first thing so we had a bit of a delay whilst it lifted. I was really happy with how the weekend had gone so far and was really eager to get back to racing and get some decent results. I ended last season at Brands on the podium and I was hoping I’d be able to get a couple of podiums  at the weekend despite the lack of testing.

I got average starts in both races and as we all know my starts are not my forte at all but thankfully they were middling to average and room for improvement! In the first race I knew I had to try and get away with the front runners and stay with them as with only using a near basic road engine my bike was a little down on speed. I ran in a bit hot into Druids and had to sit up to avoid hitting Guintoli, in the mean time Plater had crashed and I also had to swerve to miss his bike. I ended up in the gravel-trap but managed to stay up right and paddle my way back onto the tarmac, all-be-it in 10th place! I had my work cut out and had a fair bit of time to make up. I got my head down and dug deep and found my ideal passing place to be the exit to Clearways into Clark Curve. As I approached my team-mate James Ellison, I was a little cautious as the last thing I wanted to do was take myself or him out, I saw a gap and went for it. I finally crossed the line in fourth place, which I was fairly happy with after my gravel excursion.

I was feeling confident for the second race and I knew I could run consistent race times and as long as I was with the leading pack then I would be ok. The Honda’s of Harris and Easton shot out of the blocks and bridged a gap early on; I was in about sixth at the end of the opening lap and didn’t want to let them get away too easily. I started to hunt them down and on lap 18 I was fighting with Stuart Easton for the lead, with him being a lot smaller and lighter than me his bike down the straight into Paddock Hill was much faster. I knew if I was going to make a break I had to do it soon, I made the pass with 10 laps to go and just tried to consistently put in good times. All I had to do was stay on for 10 laps and even though Brands Indy is one of the shortest tracks on the calendar, they were long laps! It was a great feeling to win the second race of the year, on a brand new bike in front of my home crowd, family and friends.

I would like to say a massive thank you to Frankie my crew chief, for working all hours over the last few weeks to make everything right. Also to Colin and Darrell and the full Airwaves Yamaha team for putting in all the effort, I’m glad I was able to return all their hard work with a win. Hopefully Oulton Park will be a good one, thanks to all the fans for their support and we’ll see you there!

Leon #2