Dream Start To 2015 For Ray

Bradley Ray took to the podium twice this weekend at Donington Park, achieving his first win of the season.

After loaning a bike from Redline KTM prior to the weekend, the Kent teenager came into the first round of the British season in high spirits, confident of achieving two good results.

The weekend got off to the best of starts for the youngster, in a cold and cloudy free practice session. Brad put in a time good enough for second place, only half a second behind Taz Taylor.

The first qualifying session on Saturday afternoon saw Brad improve in time by 1.3 seconds, posting a 1:39.525. Only two tenths of a second behind the provisional pole man, Scott Deroue.

Come Sunday, Brad made improvements with the setup of his Redline KTM, but he couldn’t achieve pole position, and would start from second on the grid, for Sunday’s race.

With the sun blazing over the circuit for the first time all weekend, Brad made a great leap from the lights and battled with Deroue and Taylor for the lead. But after one lap, the Dutchman Deroue crashed leaving it to Brad and Taz Taylor to battle it out.

On the final lap Taylor pushed his way past on the back straight, but Brad regained the lead heading into the ‘Foggy’ esses with a late breaking move. And he held the lead all the way to the take the flag, to achieve his first victory of the 2015 season.

Come race two on Monday, in the hottest conditions that were seen over the three days, Brad made a great start and ran with the front two riders of Deroue and Taylor.

Constant over taking ensued throughout the race, but on the final lap back markers got in Brad’s way heading into the ‘Foggy’ esses. And after Taz Taylor made a mistake on the final lap, Brad just couldn’t catch Deroue in the run to the run to the line, and took the flag in second place.

After the weekend an ecstatic Ray said: “I was on the pace from the off, Taz was quicker than me in the first free practice and he tested here a couple of weeks ago. But after that I was always 0.2 or 0.3 seconds off first place, so I knew I’d have the race pace.

“Before the race I thought I wasn’t too far off but then when I got out there, there was quite a difference in speed between my bike and the factory KTM’s. Every breaking opportunity I had I was breaking later and pushing harder into the corner to make up the difference.

“It all worked out in the end but I knew I wasn’t going to win them both, but I knew I had the chance of a podium so I pushed hard and got second in race two, so I’m very happy.

“A massive thanks to Tim at Redline for loaning the bike this weekend and all the hard work put in by my Dad and everyone involved.”

Brad now turns his attention to his final test on the Vyrus Moto2 in Portimao next week, to put the final touches to his racing machine, before the first round at the end of April.

Photography: 

Bonnie Lane