The opening race saw James Ellison return to the podium before a big crash in the second has seen him sent to hospital for further checks. Fan favourite Chris ‘Stalker’ Walker took a fourth place finish in the opening race while wrong settings halted his charge in the wet race two restart.   

It was a strong start to the weekend for the Lloyds British GBmoto Kawasaki team as James topped the opening Free Practice session with Chris in fourth. Continuing to show front running pace throughout the remaining practice sessions, qualifying saw the duo secure front row starts with James finishing third and Stalker second, improving his best ever lap time around the 2.4 mile Brands Hatch GP circuit by half a second.

An action packed opening race saw distance reduced by a lap after an incident on the start line. Heading into the opening corner, the GBmoto pair were running in team formation with James second and Stalker third. Following a short pace car deployment, the duo entered a tense game of cat and mouse as they battled for the lead, eventually finishing third and fourth place respectively.

An incident filled race two saw James take an early lead before a nasty crash saw him tumble out of contention and injure himself. He is in hospital undergoing further checks. On the other side of the garage, Stalker had a strong showing in the dry, however a problem with the settings in the wet prevented him from showing his true potential.

Despite a tough second race, Chris Walker leaves Brands Hatch on a high “First of all I want to send my best wishes to James and hope for a speedy recovery. As a weekend, it’s been a great event for us – we’ve been on the pipe through every session and to qualify on the front row was very special.

Fourth place in the opening race was a good result and I don’t mind missing out on a podium if it’s too my team mate! Race two has certainly put a bit of a dampener on the weekend as we had a slight problem with the settings and it felt like I had dry settings on the bike – a big congratulations to the podium finishers though, particularly Richard Cooper as I’m a big supporter of him!”

Lloyds British GBmoto Kawasaki Team Principal Mark Smith-Halvorsen said, “It’s been a disappointing end to what was otherwise a great weekend for the team. The initial reports on James have revealed he’s injured himself and is currently in hospital undergoing further scans, where we’ll hopefully have a better idea of the extent of them.

It was a tough end for Chris as some wrong settings stopped his charge but he’s once again shown that he has the pace to run at the front of the Championship. The team will now regroup ahead of Thruxton where we hope to come back stronger.”