British 125GP Snetterton: Brilliant 10th place finish for Low at Snetterton
July 20, 2010 by Nigel Tasker
Filed under British 125GP
Top ten finish for Low at Snetterton
Twickenham’s Simon Low finally enjoyed some good fortune in the British 125cc Championship and, enjoying a trouble free run on the Team Shop4Bikers/Dutch-2-UK Racing Honda, the youngster took an excellent 10th place in round 7 at Snetterton on Sunday for one of his best ever results in his short career.
A strong start to the weekend saw Simon take 17th place in the first free qualifying and, reducing his lap time by over a second, he improved to 14th in the second session held on Friday. Saturday saw just one qualifying session take place due to problems with the track surface and an improved time of 1m16.997s was good enough for Simon to qualify in a season’s best of 15th place, which meant he lined up on the fourth row of the grid.
With warm weather throughout Sunday at the Norfolk venue, the 15-lap 125cc race was the penultimate race of the day but at, 5.20pm it was underway and a strong start saw Simon up to 13th at the end of lap 1, a position he held for the next 3 laps before being relegated to 14th. However, by lap 7 he was back up to 13th and, a lap later, he climbed even further up to 11th although Andrew Reid overtook him soon after. However, when race leaders John McPhee and Fraser Rogers crashed out on the 10th lap, he was up into 10th place and, riding with a cool head, his smooth riding over the closing laps paid dividends and he was able to take the chequered flag in 10th for his first top ten British Championship finish.
Speaking afterwards, a delighted Simon said: “I’m not quite sure what to say at the moment as I’m just over the moon with the result and it’s far and away my best result ever - I’ve finished 10th in a British Championship race! Although I qualified well, there were a few ups and downs along the way and I wasn’t quite sure how the race would pan out but I got a good start and was immediately in a strong place inside the points. I felt really good out there and had some good pace but I was losing a little bit of drive coming out of Russell’s chicane on to the start and finish straight and it was just enough to lose me the tow to the pack in front otherwise I think I could have finished inside the top 8. It was a hard race but I had no problems at all and, like I say, I’m just ecstatic with the result. It’s nice to have had a trouble free race and finally be able to show what I can do – roll on Brands!”
The next round of the the British 125cc Championship takes place at Brands Hatch, Kent on August 8th.
Photo by Glynne Lewis
