Tim Hastings Racing #50

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Round 12 - Donington Park (21/22/23 September)

The penultimate round of the BSB 125GP Championship at Donington Park saw another weekend full of positives for Falkirk's Tim Hastings as he took the Banks Racing Honda to a 15th place finish in the Cup race and retained his overall 7th place in the Cup standings.

As with so many tracks in his rookie season, this was Tim's first race visit to the famous 2.5 mile circuit which hosts the British round of the Moto GP Championship, so Friday's two free practice sessions were very much about learning the best lines through the fast flowing curves in the first half of the circuit and the tight slow corners that make up the second section.

A dry but windy first practice session allowed Tim to lap in under 1 minute 50 seconds, and he finished the session in 26th place out of the of 53 riders seeking to make Sunday's grid. 2nd practice was very wet, and with dry weather forecast for the remainder of the weekend, many riders elected not to go out on track. The team felt that with his limited experience of Donington, Tim would benefit from as much track time as possible and he therefore went out and successfully put in a few steady laps.

First qualifying on Saturday morning was held in damp conditions and Tim, growing in confidence with every lap he completed, went nearly a full second quicker than he had in free practice, surprising everyone with a provisional 13th place on the grid.

Second qualifying however was completely dry and the lap times throughout the field quickly tumbled. Despite going some 2.8 seconds quicker than he had all weekend, Tim finished the session in 30th place on the grid with a time of 1.46.7.

As predicted, Sunday remained dry for race day. Tim made another of his now customary good starts but soon found himself baulked by another rider's poor take off, which in turn led to him being boxed in at the first corner. Tim completed lap one in 27th place but after a few laps he had caught the five bike scrap for 22nd to 26th positions and wasted no time in passing all the riders to move through to 22nd. This impressive display only spurred on the other riders and for the rest of the race the places were constantly swapped. Leading the group at the start of the final lap, Tim held position until he was forced wide in a typical last lap overtaking manoeuvre at the Melbourne Loop, and he dropped back to 24th at the chequered flag.

Overall the team was very pleased with Tim's race effort, and he again reduced his lap times to come away from the race with a personal best time of 1.45.4. Bearing in mind that this was his first visit to Donington, his performance can best be put in context by the fact that only one second quicker would have qualified Tim for the 2007 GP125 Moto GP held earlier in the year at the same venue.

Team Twister now looks forward to the very final round of what has been an incredible first full season at national level - at the Brands Hatch Indy circuit on the 14th of October.

Read the race reports from previous rounds.