Hawk Racing came away with cause for encouragement despite riders Charlie Nesbitt and Josh Owens suffering falls in round four of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship over the weekend.

After spending a successful fortnight at the Isle of Man TT Races, the contrast of resuming the Bennetts BSB season couldn’t have been greater as the team arrived at Knockhill in Scotland - at less than 1.3 miles, the shortest track on the calendar.

Nesbitt began the weekend showing strong pace on the MasterMac Honda by Hawk Racing, including an eye-catching second fastest time in final practice. He then sealed 5th place on the grid for the BikeSocial Sprint race with his best qualifying performance to date. Owens also looked in good shape on the Crendon Honda by Hawk Racing and qualified in 14th.

From there, things proved challenging. Nesbitt was riding well in 7th place in the opening race before crashing out, while Owens put in a good performance to pick up three welcome championship points in finishing 13th.

But despite posting fast lap times in race conditions, there were no better results to come as both riders fell off in the second and third races. Thankfully they were uninjured.

Steve Hicken, team manager, said:

“Knockhill is a real handful on a superbike and unfortunately both Charlie and Josh found out how unforgiving it can be.

“As we’ve said from the start of the season, these are two young riders with lots of potential and the main thing when there’s a setback is to learn from it.

“The big positive we can take from the weekend is that Charlie and Josh showed the work we’ve been doing on the bikes has improved our overall pace, which gives us a nice foundation to build on for the next round.”

There is a three-week break before Bennetts BSB continues at Snetterton in Norfolk.