Real world rides, real world riders

Hill Leads BSB points haul into title showdown

In an exciting day's racing Hill, riding his Suzuki GSX-R1000, was on top form and after dominating the first race, was challenging for the lead again in the second race when it was red flagged (on the 14th lap). In the first race, rival Josh Brookes had taken the early lead but succumbed to an attack from Hill on the eighth lap. Hill then maintained a constant 1:27-minute lap pace while his rivals withered, so as to take the win by a comfortable 5.116-seconds. In the second race Hill had led for 11 laps and was trailing Brookes by just 0.230-seconds after 13 laps when the race was stopped.

Hill's point tally from the nine rounds amounts to 287 points, three more than Brookes and six more than Ryuichi Kiyonari. However, with the Showdown phase now beginning, the championship points tally taken so far is cast aside. The championship will now be decided over the final three rounds (seven races) between the six highest points scorers so far, known as the Title Fighters. All the title fighters have their championship point tally put on an initial parity of 500, to which is added only the podium points they've scored thus far (podium points have been awarded as three for a win, two for second and one for third). On this basis Hill steps forward into the Showdown as joint leader with Kiyonari on 525 points apiece.

Tommy Hill:  "What a fantastic weekend! To see Yuki coming good as well – it's been all good. In that first race I just felt really-really good, I could have made the jump earlier but I was interested to sit behind Josh to see what he was doing. In the second race the pace was so fast, something like two-seconds faster than it was last year, and maybe it was that or maybe there was small issue with the rear tyre but I had a little bit of chatter to deal with. I still felt comfortable and while Josh had passed me when I made a small mistake on the Mountain I felt comfortable and was setting up to repass him when the red flags came out.

"All in all I feel overjoyed. We get to leave here having effectively won the first part of the season and having beaten the HM Plant team in their own back yard – that's kind of a bonus. But now its crunch time and to be going into this vital part of the season with a joint points lead is a great position to be in."