RAF Regular & Reserves Kawasaki to skip Knockhill BSB

The RAF Regular & Reserves Kawasaki team will miss the next Bennetts British Superbike Championship round at Knockhill in favour of additional testing following Ryan Vickers’ crash at Brands Hatch.

Returning from a broken collarbone sustained in Round 3 at Donington Park – which forced the Lee Hardy Racing-run squad to miss race day – Vickers fell at Clearways during FP3 at Brands Hatch, an incident that briefly knocked him unconscious.

Confirmed with a concussion following a trip to hospital, ruling him out of racing for a second event in succession, RAF Regular & Reserves Kawasaki has taken the decision to sit out the following round at Knockhill as well rather than source a substitute rider.

Reasoning that it gives Vickers an opportunity to focus on fully recovering, the team will use the time to undergo private testing at Snetterton, which will set the scene for Round 6 next month.

“After a good TT with Gary [Johnson], we were looking forward to coming back to the BSB series with Ryan and although he wasn’t quite back to 100% fitness, the collarbone had healed well and we were all hopeful of a good weekend.

“Unfortunately, Ryan crashed towards the end of the final free practice session after hitting the notorious bump on the entrance to Clearways which has caught out many a champion before and went on to do the same to Tarran Mackenzie in qualifying later in the afternoon.”

“The end result was that Ryan took a significant bang to the head which resulted in severe concussion and a trip to King’s Hospital where he’s currently being monitored.

“The doctors are happy with how he’s progressing but with safety being paramount, it’s highly likely that we’ll miss the next round at Knockhill and look to come back at our home round of Snetterton in a month’s time.

It will give Ryan a good period of time to get fully fit and we’ll look to have a test prior to Snetterton to ensure he’s fully comfortable with everything prior to the race weekend. A big thank you to the BSB medical team for their great work in looking after Ryan after the crash.”

Despite the recent setbacks, Vickers – who was promoted straight from Superstock 600 after winning the 2018 title – has shown flashes of form on the ZX-10R with the team that finished runner-up with Jake Dixon in 2018, cracking the top ten in only his third BSB start.