BSB: Disaster for Ellison With Broken Leg

The Kendal Beefcake, James Ellison, has had a great start to this year's British Superbike season. But it all went wrong in practise at Thruxton when he fell off (while sitting at the top of the timesheets) and broke his femur.

The male model looking Cumbrian had returned to the Swan Honda team for this year and was looking like a major title challenger. Due to the crazy new rule package for BSB this year, it's not completely out of the question that he could win the title this year, but it's a huge ask. He would have to make a miracle recovery from his leg break and rack up tons of points to qualify for the top 6 shoot-out.

So, incredibly unlikely, but not impossible. Even with a clean break, a femur injury usually means that the rider's season is over. Sure, he might get back racing towards the end of the year, but it's usually a big struggle to be quick over a race distance (as friendly frog Sylvain Guintoli found out).

Ellison will have to spend the next few weeks watching TV and moaning about how rich he isn't.

Get well soon, James.

BSB Donington: GSE Yams Tops on Chaotic Day

The GSE Yamaha riders shared the victories at Donington Park in the British Superbike Championship, but it was a day of controversy.

On the way to the grid for race one, HM Plant Honda's number 2 Aussie Josh Brookes crashed into Worx Suzuki star Sylvain Guintoli at the Melbourne Loop.  Guintoli, who has starred in BSB this year and was one of the title favourites, was carted off with a badly broken leg, both tibia and fibula being fractured. Brookes protested his innocence, claiming brake failure. However, analysis of the data showed that the brakes had not failed. While Guintoli had been trundling round to the grid, Brookes had been at virtually full race pace. He grabbed the brakes, then started to pump them, then hit the hapless Frenchman.

Clearly, Brookes made an honest mistake. He would not have pumped the brakes if he thought they were working properly. I'd imagine that the major speed difference between himself and Guinters tricked his senses into thinking he wasn't slowing down at all, along with the cold brakes giving poor feedback through the lever, so he tried to pump the brakes up and meanwhile torpedoed the Suzuki.

The stewards seem to have taken the view that it was Brookesy's fault, but an honest error, as they have given him a one race ban, suspended for three races. Interviewed on TV before the stewards' decision, the Aussie was gutted, revealing that a similar thing had happened to him while racing Down Under. It's just a shame that a relatively small error has led to Guintoli being out for a couple of months.

Race 1 saw Leon Camier on the GSE Airwaves Yamaha make a poor start, but fight through to a fairly straightforward victory. It was a great race, with loads of passing for position. In the end, Camier's team-mate James Ellison secured 2nd place, with young Scotsman Stuart Easton grabbing 3rd.

Race 2 wasn't so great for Camier. The lanky Englishman's bike conked out at the Melbourne Loop. He managed to restart pretty much dead last, and massacred the slower riders to finish 12th. His team-mate, ex-MotoGP rider James Ellison took his first BSB win, and it was a pretty dominant one, albeit with Camier and Guintoli out of the picture. This time, Easton took 2nd on the Hydrex Honda, with Chris Walker 3rd on the Rob Mac Yamaha.

Leon Camier now holds a big lead in the championship, with 117 points to Ellison's 89. The human giraffe looks a stick-on for the title, so long as he stays in one piece. The only question is whether he'll stay in BSB next year or bag a decent WSBK ride!

All in all it was a great day's racing, but overshadowed by Guintoli's injury. Get well soon, Sylvain.

BSB: James Ellison to GSE Yamaha

The BSB silly season is galloping merrily along now that the racing is over for the year. The latest news is that James Ellison has been officially confirmed alongside Leon Camier to ride for GSE Yamaha next year.

Hopefully his return to the Yamaha stable will be happier than his time at Tech 3 in MotoGP. You might remember that Yamaha's first attempt at a chassis that year was atrocious, and Valentino Rossi quickly progressed to a new chassis. However, Ellison was stuck on the old one for the whole year. Add that to the abysmal Dunlop tyres he was saddled with and it was a real year to forget for Ellison. (TV commentators might be apologists for the US-owned Anglo-Japanese company, but they made a pretty pathetic attempt at joining the big two tyre companies in MotoGP. Anyway, Michelin make tyres in Britain too.)

However, next year he will be with the all-conquering GSE team, who have mostly spent this year throwing their toys out of the pram and complaining about the rules when they weren't too busy winning the championship with Shakey Byrne and Ducati. They'll be on snazzy big-bang Yamaha R1's, with technical help from Yamaha Italia. The new Yam should be a missile, and I'm talking Exocet rather than Scud. Ellison has had some excellent showings this year, especially in the early and late races of the season. Now he'll be on an excellent bike with an excellent team behind him, and we'll see the real Ellison. There'll be nowhere to hide if he has a bad day, and he should win races if he has a good day.

May as well yap about the rest of the silly season goings on while I'm at it.

Rizla have withdrawn their sponsorship from Crescent Suzuki, giving no reason but there are mutterings that the move to British Eurosport TV coverage (and Channel 4 in the middle of the night a couple of days later) has reduced the viewing figures too far for the investment to be worth it. They'll just have to sell their wacky baccy wrappers elsewhere.

Perhaps not unrelated is the news that Atsushi Watanabe has transferred to TAS Suzuki (who ran Michael Laverty this year). Atsu is a hero in Japan due to his Suzuka 8 hour results and All Japan Superbike title. He's less of a hero in the UK as he keeps getting beaten by the privateers in BSB. However, nobody goes well at Suzuka unless they have a serious pair of stones. (I mean Bridgestones, of course...) Maybe he'll do better next year. I dunno.

HM Plant Honda have lost both of their riders to world championship racing, and the current rumours are that they'll replace one of them with the hugely popular, so laid back he's horizontal, Australian Glen Richards, who won this year's British Supersport title on a Triumph. The other seat may go to scouser Steve Brogan, who has been impressive in British Superstock 1000 and Supersport this year. He revealed on TV that he has been re-signed by Honda UK, and people are predicting that this will mean a move up to BSB. We'll find out soon enough, but the silly season silliness continues.