The latest British Superbike weekend at Brands Hatch was a frustrating one for local riders, Keith Farmer and Lee Johnston.

Johnston had gone into the event on the back of his best showing of the season two weeks’ previously where he had grabbed two podiums, finishing third and second at Knockhill to move into third overall in the early championship standings.

At Brands Hatch he failed to match that success however, with a weekend best of fifth place in Sunday’s feature race.

His points haul was still enough to retain this third in the Championship, and he will have another chance to chase down his first win of the season, with back to back racing meaning they are straight back into action at Thruxton this weekend.

Keith Farmer showed some of his best pace of the season in free practice, topping the timesheets before finishing fourth in race one after edging out Alex Olsen and Billy McConnell in a fierce battle.

The Clogher rider was hoping that performance would lead to an improved showing in race two, but his challenge for the lead failed to materialise after a poor start allowed the front runners to get away.

“It was a really frustrating weekend,” admitted Keith.

“We should have been fighting for podiums, but because we couldn’t get the bike off the line, we lost too much at the start.

“I had no real feeling with the bike with new tyres and a full fuel load, but once we got rid of a bit of fuel and the tyres started to wear we got the feeling, but it was too late.

“The gap was already there, and we were too far back to fight for podiums.”

Keith and the Morello team are hoping to make an immediate change that will rectify the problem for the next round.

“We haven’t used launch control so we are going to an airfield this week to practice starts,” he revealed.

“We had been using old school starts. Just release the clutch and go, but the way the field is nowadays, it is so competitive that you need every little thing to help you.

“We need to get launch control activated so we can get away with everyone else.”

Despite the frustrating final race showing, his practice times have given Keith cause for optimism, and he is looking forward to getting back on track this weekend.

“We are making steps forward. We started the weekend really well and if you were to look through the free practice 1 and 2 we had the most consistent, quickest pace out of everyone, but we didn’t translate it to the race.

“We have to be a little positive. We know we have the pace and we know we can fight but we need to make that little next step that will allow us to fight for race wins and podiums.

“We just need to keep working and fighting. This week at Thruxton is a track I love, and I have had good race pace there before. Hopefully we can get some better points on the board.”