LIAM Delves completed his first race on the new Moto3 bike in a steady seventh place at Silverstone in the first round of the 2016 Motostar Moto3 Standard class on Sunday.
After topping the leaderboard in first practice on Friday, the weather conditions deteriorated and the 15-year-old ended up fifth in qualifying to start the first of two races from the second row.
But after a heavy rain shower left the track surface wet and slippery race control decided it was too dangerous for the young riders to venture out on Saturday afternoon and the race was postponed to take place at a later date.
Liam was disappointed to miss his race and said: “I was not too happy the race was scrapped as I go well in the wet. But there had been numerous crashes in the Supersport race earlier and they decided the track was too dangerous. We will run the race at another track somewhere later in the season.”
With no morning warm up on Sunday and no data from Saturday, Liam took his place on the grid for the start of Sunday’s race unsure of how he would perform under race conditions.
It was only the second time the Smith Wood Sports College student has ridden the Honda NSF racing machine and the first under race conditions but he was optimistic of recording a good result.
As the lights went out Liam was unfortunate to get a poor start and rounded the first corner way down the field. But as the race unfolded he recovered to ninth place and got his head down making headway through to eighth position.
By this time the leaders were long gone so Liam concentrated on gaining track experience and maintaining his position.
When the race leader fell on the final lap Liam was promoted to seventh place to cross the line for nine championship points, which not the result he wanted but at least he has the points in the bag and more experience under his belt.
He added: “Obviously I am disappointed with seventh place as I know I can do better. I had a rubbish start which is mainly down to the fact that I was unable to do any practice starts because of the weather.
“But looking at my times my best lap was only half a second away from the race winner so if I had got away better I could have been fighting for the podium.
“I would like to thank Paul from Moto Engineering and Pete Banks for putting a fantastic bike under me, also my main sponsor Crucial Sauces for their continued support.”
The next round is at Oulton Park over the May Day bank holiday weekend of April 30- May 2 and is a real riders circuit which will suit Liam’s riding style.
