It was a highly successful opening round for the T3 Racing team of Alex Olsen and Luke Jones, who was riding with T3 for this round only, as they enjoyed podium success in their respective classes. Unfortunately Superstock 600 rider Aleix Aulestia suffered a nasty crash after impressing in practice and qualifying.
With two days of dry weather enabling all three riders to get dialled in to the 1.2 mile Brands Hatch Indy circuit, qualifying unfortunately saw heavy rain arrive to the Kent track. Despite the treacherous conditions, Accumen Industrial Services & T3 Racing’s Luke Jones was able to secure fourth on the grid in the main Supersport class while Power Projects Racing and T3 rider Alex Olsen lined up an incredible seventh overall, and leading EVO rider, a new class to develop young talent.
With the weather continuing to worsen throughout the day, it was a nailbiting opening Motorpoint British Supersport race as multiple crashes and an earlier oil spill left the track particularly slippery. Luke was able to keep his composure and impressed the paddock by being in contention for the lead for most of the race. Trading places with race winner Glenn Irwin throughout the 18 lap race Luke was just beaten to the line, however having set the fastest lap time of 53.143s, he would line up in pole position for the second race.
Alex Olsen continued to impress by bringing his EVO spec machine home an amazing fourth overall, to clinch the first ever class victory. The EVO class is a brand new Championship designed to reduce costs by allowing fewer modifications than full Supersport spec machines and showcase upcoming young . Showing the competiveness of the T3 Racing prepared Triumph Daytona 675R, Olsen beat twelve full Supersport spec machines and finished eight places ahead of the next EVO class rider in his first ever ride in the series!
With dry and warm conditions greeting both riders for their second race on Monday, Luke Jones suffered an uncharacteristically poor start from pole position, leaving him languishing in eighth place by the end of the opening lap. With the Indy circuit being notoriously difficult to pass on, Jones was able to battle back to a well-earned sixth position to leave Brands Hatch third in the overall standings. Alex Olsen had another excellent performance securing a second dominant victory in the EVO class to place him firmly at the top of the Championship.
Having impressed throughout testing and practice in the Pirelli National Superstock 600 Championship, T3 Racing’s Aleix Aulestia (supported by Osborne Clarke) secured an impressive fifth place in qualifying on his debut in the class. After enjoying a fantastic start, seeing him running in third place, Aleix was involved in a nasty multiple machine crash at Druids, seeing him ruled out of contention.
Speaking after the weekend, Luke Jones said “It was a great weekend, I managed to get a good start in the opening race and basically followed the leader for the first few laps to suss out what everyone was doing. I soon realised the race was not that fast paced and there was a lot of people behind so I could easily get bumped back to fifth or sixth so needed to make a break for it to try and split the pack. I made my way to the front and just put in loads of consistent laps, I felt really good although had a few little moments but so did everybody. Unfortunately with a few laps to go I went the wrong side of a backmarker which let Glenn back through and by then he had picked up on a few of my lines and made it really difficult to overtake him.
The second race was the warmest conditions of the weekend and although I was starting from pole, we had struggled a little in the dry all weekend. I had a terrible start, but the team did a fantastic job to give me a bike I could use and I was able to battle back to sixth at the end.”
T3 Racing owner Tony Scott said, “It was a difficult round for our three T3 riders with the weather making conditions extremely tough, however I’m really pleased with how Luke, Alex and Aleix performed. Luke had a fantastic race in the wet on Sunday while Alex has really put himself on the map with a double victory in the new EVO class. It’s unfortunate Aleix was unable to complete his race, but he impressed everyone during practice and qualifying and will bounce back for Oulton.