Hipwell improves in round five of Supersport Championship

Friday’s two free practice sessions saw Hipwell 21st quickest as they were still trying to set the Triumph up to its optimum.

Not having had any dry testing sessions, the team were having to use the free practice in the dry as their testing time.

For Saturday morning’s qualifying the team decided to do a few tweaks, ultimately improved the performance of the Globalnet Triumph seeing Hipwell’s fastest lap two seconds quicker than his best free practice time, putting him 19th on the grid for the shootout race.

A good start to the race was spoiled however when he braked too early approaching Agostini corner and lost three places.

By the end of the third lap he had moved back up into 19th and when Samuel Hornsey in front of him crashed out on the penultimate lap Hipwell crossed the finishing line in 16th.

His fastest lap would see him start from 20th on the grid for Sunday afternoon’s main race.

Hipwell got off to another good start, moving up into 17th by the end of the second lap.

With 13 laps gone Hipwell had picked up three places, and took the line in 14th.

Hipwell’s fastest lap of the race was nearly half a second faster than his previous best time of the weekend, showing his improvement.

A team spokesman said: “We, as a team, were happy with the results as we were at least making improvements with the performance of the Globalnet Telecoms Triumph.”