Qualifying

Josh Brookes 3rd, Peter Hickman 16th

Race One

Josh Brookes 9th, Peter Hickman 15th

Race Two

Josh Brookes 10th, Peter Hickman 13th

Race Three

Josh Brookes 11th, Peter Hickman DNF

Despite the teams’ best efforts, it’s been a disappointing weekend for FHO Racing BMW Motorrad and riders Josh Brookes and Peter Hickman, who were in action for the penultimate round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Donington Park.

Coming into the weekend Faye Ho’s squad were on a high after making good progress at the previous round, where both Josh and Hicky were back in the mix aboard their BMW M 1000 RR Superbike machines.

The Donington weekend started positively with Josh third in the opening practice session, and 11^th on combined times, which saw him progress into Saturday’s second qualifying session; teammate Peter missed out on Q2 finishing 15^th.

Saturday’s qualifying saw Josh flying on the M 1000 RR, and he secured another front row start for the first race of the weekend in third, Peter just missed out on a place in Q2 finishing fourth, and subsequently lined up 16^th on the grid.

Across the 2024 season FHO Racing has been hampered with grip issues, and this weekend the team once again fell foul to grip and were unable to move forward across all races. The opening race of the weekend Josh had some on track battles with his BSB rivals, where early in the 20-lap race he was in the mix, but dropped back mid-race crossed the line 9^th, with Hicky 15^th.

In Sunday’s two races, the team had to salvage what they could and for Josh it was a 10^th in the 12-lap Sprint and he finished the shortened final race in 11^th. Peter finished 13^th in the Sprint, but during the final race he pulled into the pits after dropping down the field experiencing little to no grip.

The FHO Racing BMW Motorrad team now look forward to the last round of the 2024 season, which takes place at Brands Hatch on 11-13 October.

Josh Brookes: “That last race was really disappointing; the final race is where we get most of our energy from to reflect on the closer of the weekend, and it was a really difficult race. We tried a lot of things during the weekend, even right to that last race and nothing seems to have helped, the worst part was being out of brakes in that last race; I couldn’t even race with the guys in the group I was in. It’s bad enough that we’re down the list, but not being able to even fight for your position because you’re struggling with no brakes; I feel like we’re already riding with a hand tied behind our back and that’s just you know, the nail in the coffin for it. We did a great job in qualifying to be on the front row for the first race, but every race since has just been a step backwards. For all the trying nothing has proven beneficial, so we’re sat here disappointed with the weekend, I had far better hopes and higher expectations than what we’re coming away with.”

Peter Hickman: “It’s been a shocking weekend, but there have been some positives along the way. But to be the best BMW in 10^th, just shows how behind we are – we’re about 1.5s a lap off, the bike doesn’t work with the way the championship rules are now and that’s about it. We made a real good step between Saturday and Sunday, I was 4^th in warm up on Sunday morning, in the first race I did a 28.3, which wasn’t too far away, so it was a step forward over the 12 laps I was seven seconds faster than the day before, but it only put us around the 15^th mark. The final race it looks like I had a bit of a dodgy rear tyre, from the first few laps I had zero grip, we didn’t change the bike at all, there was a tiny change but nothing that would have ruined it as much as it got ruined. I literally couldn’t ride the bike from the first lap and just went backwards, eventually I just pulled in as we were dropping back so much.”

Faye Ho: “The team is coming away from Donington Park disappointed after heading into the weekend with so much good energy following Oulton Park. The team and riders are all trying their best to make progress and do what they can, but this season we have been hurt by the rule changes and that’s showing with the results each weekend. We all know what both Josh and Pete are capable of, but at the moment they’re not able to show their full potential, despite so much hard work behind the scenes. We have one more round left of the 2024 season in a few weeks’ time and hopefully we can finish the season on a high!”