The final round of the British F1 Sidecar Championship took place this weekend at Brands Hatch and Team Ricky and Ryan achieved their ambition of winning the title for the second year running.

Sidecar driver Ricky Stevens, from Portsmouth, and his passenger Ryan Charlwood, from Dover, arrived at the Kent circuit with a 47-point lead and one goal in mind: to be the 2016 British F1 sidecar champions.

This advantage wasn’t enough to guarantee them the title however, so they still had everything to race for.

Ryan said: “Obviously we always race to win but we had to race tactically this weekend.

“We felt confident and relatively relaxed going into the first race on Saturday. There was a couple of other teams gunning for the title so our main aim was to finish each race, preferably on the podium, and that would put us in good stead to bag the championship.”

The pair started the first race on Saturday from the front of the grid in position 2. They had to hold back slightly at the start to create some distance between themselves and another outfit which saw them take sixth place as the race got underway. But they gradually raced their way back up the grid and in a nail-biting race to the finish line, they secured a third-place finish behind Tim Reeves and Ben Holland.

Ricky said: “I saw a window of opportunity at the end and went for it. For a moment I thought we could actually win that race but at the last minute I had to kill the throttle to avoid hitting Ben Holland’s outfit. In the end there was less than half a second between the three of us.”

The second race was also due to take place on Saturday but got postponed until Sunday due to heavy rain. Entering that race, Ricky and Ryan still held a 29-point advantage and they had the title firmly in their sights. To achieve their goal, they had to finish in fifth place or higher.

Ricky said: “The track was still really wet when we went up and we really struggled not to lose grip. Everyone had to keep a steady pace to avoid spinning it.”

Ricky and Ryan spent most of the race in fourth place with Tim Reeves in the lead, followed by the outfits of Chris Walker and Ben Holland. The latter spun out in the last lap allowing Ricky and Ryan to grab the third spot and their last podium of the season.

They finish the championship with 397 points, winning the title with an 11-point lead.

Ryan said: “We did what we came to do: win the championship. Now we can celebrate with the fantastic team of people who supported us throughout and made this victory possible.”

Ends

Notes to editors:

• Ricky and Ryan are the 2015 and 2016 British F1 Sidecars champions.
• They raced to victory in the 2015 championship for team AOS/Be Wiser with Ricky Stevens, from Portsmouth, as driver and Ryan Charlwood, from Dover, as co-rider.
• In 2015, they also beat the world champions by four seconds, effectively making them the best F1 sidecar racing team in the world at present.
• For the 2016 season, Ricky and Ryan have joined the Quattro Plant Cool Kawasaki team. The newly sponsored team has a new livery and the backing from Bournemouth Kawasaki. The Quattro Plant Cool team also includes British Superbike riders Luke Mossey and Filip Backlund and Supersport rider Andy Reid.

For media information contact:
Sarah-Jane Freni
Account Director
Shooting Star
0117 3131120
sarahjane@weareshootingstar.co.uk

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