Snow halts Bennetts British Superbike event - HM Plant Honda
applauds ‘awesome’ fans
 Heavy
snow today at Brands Hatch led to the cancellation of the
first round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship.
The weather took a turn for the worse in the morning at around
7am before the day’s schedule had even begun. With heavy
snow falling, by 11.15am the decision was taken by race control
in concert with circuit owners/promoters MotorSport Vision
to cancel the day’s proceedings and re-schedule the
race weekend for 10th-11th May.
The decision was disappointing to the many thousands of fans
who had braved the conditions to watch the races, but all
involved in the Championship agreed that the decision was
the correct one for riders’ safety.
Leon Haslam – HM Plant Honda
British Superbike – Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade
“It’s gutting not to race, especially so for
the fans as so many have turned up – despite the awful
conditions. You’ve got to applaud them for that! We’ve
got to take some positives from the weekend and we can go
away from Brands Hatch knowing that we’ve made a lot
of progress with the new CBR1000RR Fireblade. We now just
need to get the event and hopefully the bad weather behind
us and look forward to the next event at Thruxton.”
Cal Crutchlow – HM Plant Honda
British Superbike – Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade
“This is such a disappointment – we all wanted
to race today – but we all understand why the decision
has been made and it’s for the right reasons. This is
the UK, not Spain so the weather can generally be pretty unpredictable,
as we saw at the official BSB test at Snetterton. One thing
I wanted to mention is the fans – they’ve been
great and to turn out in this sort of number in these conditions
is just awesome. So many of them are wearing helmets, so they
have turned up on bikes too – they’re a lot braver
than I am! We’ve still been out in the garage signing
things for them and I want to thank them all for turning up.”
Steve Brogan – Honda (UK) Racing
British Supersport – Honda CBR600RR
British Superstock – Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade
“All I can do is echo what Cal and Leon have said –
it’s a big disappointment for us all and sad for everyone
who wanted to see some racing here at Brands Hatch today.
Obviously with the Superstock Fireblade we were on pole and
we were looking good for the race and with the CBR600RR in
Supersport I was confident we could have been up there as
well. You can see from the conditions that the decision is
the right one, which is just too bad, but we’ll look
towards Thruxton now.”
Havier Beltran – HM Plant Honda Team Manager
“It’s unfortunate across the board today for anyone
involved in the Bennetts British Superbike series: whether
you’re a rider, a fan, a team manager, a sponsor, anyone.
We all want to see some racing but all morning we’ve
seen the conditions worsen and we’ve had sponsors who’ve
been stuck in traffic not able to get here. The conditions
have been so bad that for some of our guests travelling towards
Brands it’s taken them an hour to travel five miles.
This decision hasn’t been taken lightly, but it is the
correct one when you have the riders’ safety at heart.”
Jonathan Palmer – Chief Executive, MotorSport
Vision
“It is bitterly disappointing for all the fans who have
come and of course for all the teams and organisations including
the Brands Hatch team who have put so much into this weekend.
Apart from the inability to put on the great show fans expected
from BSB, safety is our number one priority and this must
not be compromised. Fortunately a major benefit of MSV now
running BSB is that following a review of our calendar, I
am delighted to be able to immediately announce that we have
re-scheduled this meeting which will now take place on the
Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit on 10th-11th May. All race-day
weekend and grandstand tickets will be valid for the new date
at no extra charge. The grids for all the races within the
BSB programme will be as set yesterday on 5th April. The 10th-11th
May date was scheduled to be a BMCRC meeting and some races
from this will be incorporated into the BSB event.”
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