Lauder sidecar-racer Steve Kershaw leading British and Scottish F2 championships after three meetings in five weeks

That was their third race meeting in five weekends, following on from the Scottish sidecar championship’s first two rounds at Knockhill in Fife and East Fortune in East Lothian.

Kershaw and Merseysider Gibbons notched up two runner-up places at the former behind British F1 series favourites Luke Williams and Ruben Janssens as they got in some practice before round five of 2025’s British Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch in Kent in July.

Two weeks later at East Fortune, things didn’t go to plan as water in their fuel led to them failing to set a qualifying time. Consigned to last on the grid, things then got worse when they were excluded from race one’s results for failing to complete a lap before a restart. Race two saw the Borderer and his sidekick go from 21st on the grid to fourth at the finish, only narrowly missing out on third.

After those mishaps, Kershaw and Gibbons are just ahead in pole position on the Scottish leaderboard, but with the top five teams only eight points apart, there’s no room for error if they’re to stay there.

Back in British championship action south of the border near Norwich at the weekend, the Kershaw team were expecting to struggle with their standard engines against rivals with tuned motors, so after qualifying, they were pleasantly surprised to end up in position two on the grid, only 0.1 seconds behind Newcastle’s Lee Crawford and Scott Hardie and ahead of North Yorkshire’s Kieran Clarke and Andrew Johnson, but with less than half a second covering the top three, it looked unlikely that there’d be much in it.

Saturday saw the 19 crews competing head off with Kershaw/Gibbons leading the charge from Crawford/Hardie, Clarke/Johnson and Anglo-French pairing Todd Ellis and Emmanuelle Clement, taking part to fit in a bit of pre-Isle of Man Tourist Trophy practice.

By lap three the Lauder crew had stretched out a 2.5-second lead as Crawford and Clarke competed for second, but on lap four Crawford/Hardie suffered another mechanical issue and retired, leaving Clarke/Johnson free to chase down the leaders and by the start of the final lap they were right on their tail, slipstreaming past into turn one.

Kershaw/Gibbons passed straight back on the brakes into the hairpin, but the extra grunt of Clarke/Johnson’s tuned Yamaha was enough to allow them to accelerate past and hold on for their debut win from Kershaw/Gibbons by 0.2 seconds. Lincolnshire’s Ellis and Clement, world sidecar champions in 2022 and 2023, were third, almost 14 seconds down.

Race two on Sunday again saw Kershaw/Gibbons take the holeshot from Ellis/Clement, Clarke/Johnson and Crawford/Hardie.

At the end of lap one the four crews were covered by a single second before Ellis/Clement began to drop back to the pack. Again, the two remaining chasers held each other up until Clarke made a mistake on lap four allowing Crawford/Hardie to get past, and this time it was their turn to take chase.

Lapping over a second faster than anybody else, Crawford/Hardie caught and went ahead of Kershaw/Gibbons to win by three seconds, with Clarke/Johnson nine seconds adrift.

Their placings in Norfolk have increased Kershaw and Gibbons’ series lead to 29 points, on 126, ahead of round four in Wales next month, with Clarke/Johnson now their nearest challengers on 97 and Crawford/Hardie third on 75.

“It was a fabulous weekend for us,” said Kershaw.

“We were expecting to lose out more with the standard Honda engines but the handling was perfect so we could carry the corner speed.

“The wee bike ran flawlessly so we’re delighted with its reliability, which is so important at the TT.

“It’s given us all a real boost as we head for the Isle of Man in under a fortnight.”

With the team now leading both Scottish and British series on their return to F2 racing, they’re hoping the good times continue across the Irish Sea as they make their TT fortnight debut starting at the end of the month, seeded at number ten.