It was an emotional double podium for Maxxis-sponsored James Ellison at the famous TT Circuit Assen this weekend, on his birthday, and the anniversary of his Father’s passing, keeping his championship ambitions alive. James was also confirmed to be with the team for a consecutive third season in 2016.
Difficult weather conditions disrupted the Kendal man’s progress throughout the free practice sessions, but he was still inside the top ten. James showed true grit and battled through even more pain to make it into the Datatag Extreme Qualifying session on Saturday afternoon.
From the off in qualifying, James started to post times good enough to run inside the top five, and he breezed into the final stage. After a change onto fresh rubber, James pulled a time out of the bag that stunned everyone, given the issues he was having with his wrist. The birthday boy posted a 1:36.2, a full second under the lap record, to line him up second on the grid, only four tenths behind pole man Josh Brookes.
Race one on Sunday saw James get a great start, and he ran in second after the first corner. He then started to battle his way forward posting the fastest lap of the race and a new lap record, until Brookes responded to improve on the record set by Ellison. James then started to ride his own race, maintaining the gap between Michael Laverty in third place, taking the flag in a fantastic second place.
James retained his second spot on the grid, thanks to his second fastest lap time in the first race. But prior to the start of race two, the weather took a turn for the worse, with heavy rain in parts of the circuit. It took two restarts before the riders got underway on a mixture of tyres, but Ellison took the gamble and started on slicks.
He made a good start but got caught up in the first couple of turns, and after lap two he was in eighth place. As the circuit started to dry, James made his way through the pack and took the lead of the race with only seven laps to go. Josh Brookes made a hard pass in the fast section of the course, but as they crossed the line James just couldn’t make his way past, and took the flag in second, his second rostrum of the weekend.
After the successful weekend in Holland, title fighter Ellison said: “I felt like I had a little bit of extra help this weekend with my Dad watching over me, and I had a couple of moments where I thought the race over especially in race two. I kept thinking about the effort he put in to me and my brother over the years, and I just kept digging in deep because when I saw I had big gap I thought Josh was in a little bit of trouble with other riders, so when he gets through he’ll have a chance of catching me.
“I got the gap to two and half seconds, but then he just kept coming back at me. We still hung with him, and we crossed the line not far behind so I’m really pleased with that. We clawed some more points back on Shakey as well, which is good, there are three of us in the championship, not just Josh. So it feels like job done.”
JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Team Owner Mark Smith-Halvorsen added: “I’m really pleased with the podiums and the confidence of both the team and James. We’ve lost ten points to Josh, but we’ve gained some really important points on Shakey and that’s the type of momentum that we want to carry on to Silverstone.
“The title is still a tough job, Josh has been to Assen before earlier in the year and we’ve been close to him in that second race, which is really good. The whole team have done a cracking job this weekend, and I feel with the updates we have for Silverstone we will be fighting for race wins.”
