Reigning champions Ricky Stevens and Ryan Charlwood enjoyed a positive start to the Hyundai Heavy Industries British Sidecar Championship at Oulton Park last weekend.

Sidecar driver Ricky Stevens from Portsmouth, and his passenger Ryan Charlwood from Dover, were third on the grid and maintained that position until lap six when they overhauled Andy Peach and Charlie Richardson.

Despite the challenging weather conditions, they finished second behind world champion Tim Reeves and his passenger Gregory Cluze, and also had the honour of claiming the fastest lap of the race.

Ryan said: “The weather was an issue because it kept changing, which made deciding on which tyres to use very difficult. As last year’s champions, there’s also a bit of pressure on us as we’re the ones everyone is looking to beat.

“However, this weekend we managed to get the fastest lap time and we’re very pleased to be going to Brands Hatch in three weeks’ time with 20 points under our belt.”

Preparing for the race at Oulton Park in Cheshire was not plain sailing for the team, who came up against technical difficulties.

Ricky said: “There are plenty of positives to take away from the weekend and we’ve continually built our speed with each and every session. It’s been a long winter and it’s been a while since we’ve raced in anger and that resulted in me suffering a bit of arm pump. It took me a while to get going in the race and should have gone harder from the start but we’ve scored some good points and set the fastest lap so it’s a solid start to the season.”

During their first session in Val de Vienne, France, in March they had to switch engines and had a few issues with a wheel bearing.

A couple of weeks later at Donington Park they encountered further technical issues, which meant the practice session was aborted.

Paul Knapton, team manager, said: “The outfit hasn’t been running at 100 percent over the past six weeks but we’ve been working hard in the run-up to this race to resolve those issues and I’m delighted that the team’s efforts have paid off.

“We’re really pleased with our performance this weekend and are now looking forward to what looks like being a hotly contested championship.”