Kiyo hampered by others' mistakes at Oulton

Ryuichi Kiyonari endured a disastrous weekend at Oulton Park for the second round of the MCE British Superbike championship, with the three-time champion forced to retire from both races through no fault of his own.

The Bennetts Suzuki rider pulled in to the pits reporting a strange feeling from the front tyre after just a handful of laps in race one. Investigations back at the garage revealed his wet Pirelli front had been put on the wheel rim the wrong way round.

“This kind of thing should not be happening,” team boss Martin Halsall told MCN. “When the series has a spec tyre supplier and you have to buy your tyres from a certain vendor, the service has to be 100% top notch with no room for errors like this as not only did it end our first race but it also meant Kiyo had to start race two from 22^nd.

“In future, we will now double check every tyre fitted but we shouldn’t have to make sure simple things like this are done properly.”

Pirelli have apologised for the blunder and told MCN: “We can confirm that unfortunately our tyre fitting service made a mistake in mounting the front tyre the wrong way round for race one. We immediately made an apology to the rider and team, which we repeat now.

“Since 2008 we have serviced over 200 riders in each season, but for sure the uncertain weather conditions and sudden rush in the tyre fitting area may have created a situation in which a mistake could happen.”

Kiyonari’s weekend went from bad to worse in race two after a mistake by the team on the grid saw his brakes lock-on during the warm-up lap.

“We’ll hold our hands up when we’ve done something wrong,” Halsall added. “In the quick wheel change on the grid for race two, one of our guys made a mistake and that meant Kiyo couldn’t race.”