YATE'S Luke Hedger secured a top-10 finish at Thruxton

Earlier, Hedger, 23, aboard the CPD Kawasaki, he found himself in unfamiliar territory, back in 16th and 19th place for Friday’s Thruxton Pirelli National Superstock 1000 free practice sessions.

He was disappointed with this,but the team had worked all night on the bike to improve settings for Saturdays single session, qualifying.

Hedger was determined to put all the teams’ hard work to good use and much to manager Chris Cunnington’s delight Hedger took the chequered flag in 9th place putting him on the third row the Sunday’s race. Hedger was delighted to find out he was only 0.4 off the Thruxton lap record.

It has been a great first year so far for the CPD Kawasaki team in the British Superbike paddock with 2 riders Luke Hedger and team-mate, Joe Collier.

With the volume of entries to the stock 1000 series and the distance of Thruxton circuit it was sure to be a great race on Sunday.

Hedger took a testing race all in his stride using the entire track to overtake then he was overtaken again on the last chicane on the final lap to take the chequered flag in 10th.

He has taken 6 points away from round 7 at Thruxton, Hampshire circuit , placing him 9th overall in the championship as it stands with 69.5 points in total.

Hedger said: “The weekend started off really tough, but myself and the team worked hard on Friday night getting the bike where it needed to be for Q1. I was pretty happy with how it went Saturday having strong pace and setting a quick lap time only 0.4 off the lap record.

"Sunday, I was looking forward to getting stuck in, but I didn’t have the grip from lap one and struggled for most of the race to find grip but I was happy to of brought the bike home in the top 10.

"I would like to thank the team for all their efforts and hard work they put in on the weekend.”

The next round is this weekend at Cadwell Park, Lincolnshire.