Lauder sidecar crew stay fourth on championship leaderboard after Fife round
Lauder sidecar racing pair Steve Kershaw and Rhys Gibbons took second place in round two of this year’s British F1 Sidecar Championship at Knockhill in Fife at the weekend, keeping them fourth in the series’ standings with five rounds to go.
Friday’s qualifying, in monsoon-like weather conditions, saw the Borders pair, on their Louis Christen Racing Triumph, place third, with North Yorkshire’s Luke Williams and Jason Pitt first, just ahead of wild-carding Newcastle F2 outfit Lee Crawford and Scott Hardie.
The front-runners pulled out ahead of Saturday’s race one, however, due to passenger Pitt injuring one of his hands during that morning’s warm-up, promoting Crawford/Hardie to pole position and Kershaw/Gibbons onto the front row ahead of series leaders Lewis Blackstock and Oscar Lawrence and former world champions Ben Birchall and Mark Wilkes in row two.
Nottinghamshire’s Birchall aced the start of the 15-lap race, diving between Crawford/Hardie and Kershaw/Gibbons into turn one and leading the pack downhill through twists and turns.
Kershaw pulled off the same move on Birchall on lap four, nosing into the lead, but the Mansfield motorcyclist repaid that compliment soon afterwards and Lancashire’s Blackstock also got in front of the Borders crew, demoting them to third place.
On lap 12, Blackburn’s Blackstock edged ahead of Birchall to go into a lead he wouldn’t relinquish. With the top three covered by 0.7 seconds, it was the closest finish of the day, Birchall crossing the line as runner-up and Kershaw third.
Sunday morning’s race two, cut to 12 laps, saw grid places determined by race one’s fastest laps, giving Blackstock/Lawrence pole position from Kershaw/Gibbons, Birchall/Wilkes and Cheshire’s Rob Biggs and Ferry Segers.
Again, the Lauder crew looked fast going around corners but just didn’t have enough speed on the straights to get in front of the outfits ahead.
Blackstock/Lawrence chalked up several fastest laps and eked out an advantage up front of over a second. Lap eight saw Birchall make an uncharacteristic error at the bottom of a dip, losing the rear of his Honda outfit and ending up in gravel alongside the track, sustaining suspected broken ribs and his passenger a broken elbow, triggering a red flag and sidelining them for the foreseeable future. With two-thirds race distance completed, it was declared a result and Blackstock/Lawrence made it five wins from five races this year.
Though now facing an uphill struggle to mount a credible title challenge, Kershaw was happy with his showing at the Dunfermline track ahead of round three at Snetterton in Norfolk at the start of July, saying: “After round one, when we were struggling to go with the front two teams, we were right in the mix here.
“The handling is now where we need it to be and it’s down to fine-tuning to get the last few percent that will get us to the front.
“After the disappointment of the TT, that’s exactly what we needed.”