Solid finish for Newport star Booth-Amos at Silverstone
Silverstone proved to be a much happier hunting ground for rising star Tom Booth-Amos as he was roared on to a positive finish in front of his passionate UK fans.
The British round of the MotoGP series took place at the iconic track on bank holiday Sunday and saw the CIP-Green Power rider in action for round 12 of the Moto3 championship.
The Newport star, who is making his debut in the premiere class of motorbike racing this year, was happy to return to a track he had ridden many times before – rather than being faced with another brand new circuit to get his head around.
The 23-year-old had enjoyed good race pace for most of the weekend and was the 17th fastest rider by the end of the third practice session.
Perfect weather conditions then greeted the riders for the main, which saw Booth-Amos finish in 25th place, just 1.6 seconds behind the leader.
“The weekend started really positive," he said. "I was fast from FP1 really and after FP3 I finished 17th.
"It was a good lap but I got held up and still managed to finish 17th, so I had a good feeling with the bike.
"I was looking forward to qualifying but unfortunately the strategy we used in qualifying didn't allow me to use the slipstream of the others and I didn’t manage to get a good lap in.
"My grid position was bad and it kind of ruined the race for me because I had to push too much on the first laps.
"I couldn’t make up so many places to where I should have been for the race, which was a shame because all weekend I was fast.
"We move on to Misano, another new circuit, so we'll see how we get on there.”
Round 13 of the MotoGP series takes place in Misano, Italy, September 13-15.
Meanwhile, Mid Wales star Chaz Davies was back out testing ahead of the World Superbike campaign returning after the long, annual summer break.
Davies, 32, from Presteigne, sits seventh in the championship on 184 points after nine rounds but will be looking to kick on when the series restarts in Portugal.
Davies and the rest of the Aruba.it Racing-Ducati team enjoyed two days of testing at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve circuit.
Four testing sessions were scheduled over the two days for a total of eight hours of track time on board the Panigale V4 R machine.
Davies posted the eighth fastest time on day one, with a lap of 1:42.487, before dropping to 11th as he made adjustments to the rear of his bike – despite going quicker at 1:42.161.
“It was a good two days and great to get back into the swing of things and actually just verify the progress that we have made since the test here in January," he said.
"Coming here six months later, I felt like the bike responded pretty good all in all.
"Over the two days we worked on the chassis mainly, things felt good and the bike was working well. I go away from here pretty confident and can’t wait for the final part of the season to start.”
The Aruba.it Racing-Ducati team will be back on track at Portimao for round 10 of the Superbike World Championship, September 6-8.
