It was yet another drama fuelled Bennetts British Superbike weekend, full of action from start to finish and that was just in the top class. However there were some changes in the IN Competition/Aprilia UK camp as they welcomed back fellow Aprilia rider, Fraser Rogers, after a sabbatical from the sport he was ready to roll his sleeves up and get straight back into action.

Free Practice started off strong for the IN Competition duo making their way around the 2.692 mile track, with Lewis getting a combined fastest time of 1.36:585 placing him firmly in fourth place right behind the leading pack whilst Fraser blew the cobwebs off his leathers as he threw his leg over the Aprilia RSV4 again after 705 days moving inside the top ten in eighth place after 29 laps. 

Saturday the team was again feeling confident. Lewis flew out of the garage wasting no time at all in Q2 after an impressive 3 laps Lewis parked himself firmly in P2 on the grid only +0.215 off pole sitter Dan Linfoot. Fraser found himself yet again in the top ten +0.729 off the top spot. 

Saturday afternoon’s race saw Lewis starting in the prime position where he remained after a good start and on lap 3 created history when he produced his own and Aprilias fastest lap ever around Oulton Park. He crossed the line in P5 just missing out on P4 on the last corner. Fraser had some more work to do from row 4 of the grid but by lap three he was moving up the leaderboard smoothly crossing the line in P7. 

Race 2 on Sunday was going to plan for the whole team. Fraser Rogers made a tiny mistake on the last corner of lap one, costing him dearly as he tipped off into the gravel ending his weekend. Lewis had a more successful second outing starting fourth on the grid just falling short, unable to hold on, crossing the line in fifth.  

Lewis Rollo: “Close but not close enough!! What a weekend at Oulton for the third last round of the season. Weekend started well in practice and headed into qualifying strong where we put it p2 on the grid and set my own and Aprilias fastest ever lap around Oulton park. Race 1 started well, getting away with Linfoot but unfortunately an incident caused the safety car to come out which bunched us up. Dropping back to 4th wasn’t the plan but we stuck in with the leading group till the end of the race and just got piped to the line for 4th just 0.8 of the race win. Race 2 we made some big changes to try put a fight against the front guys but after getting an awful start I had some work to do, still sticking with the front group for half the race we dropped of but I managed to get up to 4th for the last lap but unfortunately got piped again to the line finishing race 2 p5. Overall a brilliant weekend with a brilliant qualifying and two good strong races. Our fastest ever lap and our closest finish to the win. Huge thanks to the team for all their hard work, our sponsors for making it possible and onto Donington we go!”

Fraser Rogers: “Thanks again to Ian & Myra for having me back, it’s been a pleasure to be a part of the team this weekend & I am looking forward to getting stuck into the next few races. As for my performance this weekend, I feel I should have done better. The bike is incredible & I want to show its full potential so I’ll be working hard between rounds to improve. Shout out to Alex who’s been working in my corner flat out this weekend to turn the bike upside down & get me comfortable & apologies to the team for the slip off in Race 2 when a decent result was possible. Thank you to my sponsors, Steve Buckenham, Gary Caught, MJW Specialists & all my family & friends who have supported me to get back here.”

Ian Newton, Team Owner: “The team has worked really hard behind the scenes in the lead up to this weekend and we have made some good progress forward with Lewis. It’s great to see the hard work coming together. We still have some work to do with Fraser but considering it’s the first time he has stepped back into the ring he did remarkably well. We have two rounds remaining before we conclude this season and we’ll be giving it our best at Donington and the Final at Brands Hatch.”

The penultimate round is set to go ahead on 29 Sept – 01 Oct at the famous MSV Donington Park GP circuit where another 50 points are up for grabs.