Quay Garage Honda rider Tommy Bridewell stunned the established stars with a superb performance during practice at the opening round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch in Kent today. The 21 year old from Etchilhampton near Devizes in Wiltshire set fastest time during this morning’s second free practice session aboard the Quay Garage Honda Fireblade with a time of 46.623 seconds and finished ahead of Worx Crescent Suzuki rider Tommy Hill and HM Plant Honda ace Ryuichi Kiyonari and all was looking good to repeat the performance in this afternoon’s third session when Bridewell was holding position one with just a few minutes remaining. However he couldn’t hold on as he was held up on a potential fastest lap and had to surrender fastest time to Tommy Hill but still ended up in second position to round off a good day and to stand him in good stead going into tomorrow’s qualifying action aboard the ex Shakey Byrne 2007 machine. Yesterday Tommy impressed in the damp conditions and held fourth fastest at one point and the Quay Garage Honda team are very confident of a good result following a number of laps around the Indy Circuit. “I’m feeling very positive after today and I don’t think many people would have had us first and second in the two sessions today. We’ve gradually upped our pace and up until the very final minutes of this afternoon’s session, we hadn’t used a soft tyre. Instead we’ve been concentrating on getting a good race set up and there’s still a lot we can improve for tomorrow. The team is working fantastic and the bike is awesome but we need to keep improving and the plan tomorrow is to try and get on to the front two rows of the grid. If we can do that then we stand a very good chance in Monday’s races as we’ve done consistently fast laps over a race distance today” said Tommy. Team owner Ian Woollacott was equally upbeat: “Tommy’s done a wonderful job for us today and we’ve been impressed by his pace. He’s adopted a very mature approach to the weekend and I’ve never seen him as focused nor as fit as he is. We have a good set up and we have more we can do so hopefully we can continue this great start to the season and score a couple of good results for the Quay Garage Honda team.” 2010 MCE British Superbike Championship – Free Practice 2 (Saturday) 1. Tommy Bridewell (Quay Garage Honda) 46.623s 2. Tommy Hill (Worx Crescent Suzuki) 46.641s 3. Ryuichi Kiyonari (HM Plant Honda) 46.715s 4. James Ellison (Swan Honda) 46.952s 5. Josh Brookes (HM Plant Honda) 46.980s 6. Gary Mason (MSS Colchester Kawasaki) 47.023s 2010 MCE British Superbike Championship – Free Practice 3 (Saturday) 1. Tommy Hill (Worx Crescent Suzuki) 45.926s 2. Tommy Bridewell (Quay Garage Honda) 46.090s 3. James Ellison (Swan Honda) 46.117s 4. Ryuichi Kiyonari (HM Plant Honda) 46.126s 5. Michael Laverty (Relentless Suzuki) 46.176s 6. Yukio Kagayama (Worx Crescent Suzuki) 46.187s Tomorrow sees the final free practice session take place at 10.00am with the Swan Roll for Pole getting underway at 3.00pm. More, from a press release issued by Swan Honda: SWAN HONDA ALL SET FOR BRANDS HATCH QUALIFYING The Swan Honda team had a positive second day of free practice at Brands Hatch for the opening round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship today, with both James Ellison and Stuart Easton now feeling confident ahead of tomorrow’s Swan Roll for Pole qualifying session. Ellison ended the third free practice session in third just 0.191 seconds off the fastest lap time, running on old tyres as he continued to make changes to the traction control which saw his times tumble in the afternoon. Easton also used the afternoon to run a longer stint, completing 40 laps, and despite his injury he feels ready to up the pace in tomorrow’s qualifying session. Ellison said: “This morning was a bit of a no go because the conditions were so changeable, but this afternoon it was dry and we were really able to pick up the pace. We made a change to the rear linkage and that gave us more traction. We have been getting the traction control dialled out trying to find the limit and with each change we have been going faster, so we have made good progress in that area. We did long stints this afternoon using the same tyre and my best time came on the 20th lap so that shows the potential. I am having so much fun on the Swan Honda and my times are already better than what I did here last year so I am definitely feeling happy.” Easton said: “It was good to be back out on the Swan Honda and I used the same tyre all day as I wasn’t going for lap times. I only did eight laps this morning, but I did 40 laps this afternoon and posted some respectable times, which has really given me a confidence boost ahead of tomorrow. My leg has held up well today and it has been bearable, so that has pleased me as you never know what it will be like until you actually get out on track and ride. We have a few changes to make to the balance of the Swan Honda which should help us in certain parts of the track and with new rubber we will see a real improvement tomorrow.”