Snetterton BSB: ‘We expect to fight for this championship’ - Bridewell

Oxford Racing Ducati’s Tommy Bridewell goes into this weekend’s Snetterton Bennetts British Superbike round focusing on cementing a Showdown spot but with one eye on the subsequent title chase.

Bridewell is currently sixth in the title chase, 23 points ahead of the eighth-place cut-off, and says he will take it day by dqy, starting with a clean Saturdah sprint.

“Snetterton we need to focus on what we need to achieve. We are here and expect to fight for the championship and we have had a steadier start to the season perhaps compared to what I had hoped but the beauty of the Showdown is that it gets reset almost after Snetterton,” said Bridewell.

“There is an element of we still just need to keep our nose clean this weekend, more so for the Saturday race. It would be nice to be in a decent position after the Saturday race so we are more relaxed for the two Sunday races. I don’t really ride thinking about needing to confirm the Showdown because if I don’t make the Showdown, somewhere along the line this season we have underperformed.

“Obviously we got some good mileage at Cadwell with the new things we had to test and got an understanding. There was an instant improvement for me, where I went out and thought ‘this feels better’. But with Cadwell you almost reach a point and that is it, because we were on lap record pace and there isn’t much else you can find.

At Snetterton there are corners and areas where I think we can almost maximise the newer potential of the bike, around turn one, three, the last long right hander. The new spec of the bike should help us there to be honest so I think we need to roll out on Friday, see where we are, and go from there.

“I have ridden the bike in ’19, ’20 and ’21 and three years of