KENDAL's British Superbike rider James Ellison endured a weekend to forget with a double DNF at Snetterton.

It was a disappointing weekend overall for the JG Speedfit Kawasaki team, with two separate incidents in the opening race seeing Ellison and teammate Peter Hickman taken out of contention, whilst Leon Haslam suffered with a lack of grip on his way to fifth. In the second race, Haslam secured fourth whilst further bad luck struck Ellison who retired. Hickman, who finished eighth, crashed on oil after the red flag had been deployed.

Anticipation was high for the opening race after a promising two-day test at the Norfolk circuit, however disaster immediately struck the JG Speedfit team as despite taking a great start Ellison was unluckily involved in an incident at turn two and was taken out of contention.

Further bad luck struck on lap four when Hickman was also involved in an incident through no fault of his own, crashing out of fifth place. As the sole rider remaining, early race leader Leon struggled with rear grip and slipped back to fifth at the flag.

Although eager to make amends in the second outing, Ellison was forced to retire from 14th after being plagued by clutch issues.

A disappointed Ellison said: “This weekend hasn’t gone to plan. We had a few problems Friday but coming into that first race I was really happy with the package the team had given me and I felt we could be running at the front. Unfortunately we were taken out and couldn’t show what we could do. The team again rebuilt the bike and it was great, but we just had a bit of a problem with the clutch and couldn’t ride competitively.

"It’s absolutely gutting, but we’ll move on and refocus – we’ve slipped out of the Showdown position but we’re not far off so I will be looking to get back in at Thruxton.”