Motorpoint: Baz 'blew us away'!

The Motorpoint Yamaha team were 'blown away' by stand-in rider Loris Baz on his BSB debut at Croft.

The Frenchman, replacing the injured Andrew Pitt, qualified eighth and finished seventh in race one, before a crashing out of race two.

"This was an incredible weekend for me, the British Championship is fantastic, the crowds, the pace of the riders the whole atmosphere is amazing," he said.

"In the second race I get hit by Kagayama and nearly fell off the bike, so then I am so far back I have to keep pushing, I got through to 13th position and had a good pace but then I push too hard at the slow corner and crash.

"I am sorry for the team for the crash, I wanted to get a good result for them but tried a little too much, hopefully I can get another chance to race at BSB and make amends!"

Team manager Rob Mac was certainly impressed.

"That was a great weekend for my team, we did not quite get the end result we hoped for but Dan [Linfoot's] pace was right on it and Loris blew us away!" he said.

"Loris gave the team a real kick of inspiration, having a young guy pushing hard sat in the same garage definitely helped Dan and the both of them came away with a good weekend.

"Loris definitely exceeded our expectations, qualifying on the second row and finishing 7th for a 17 year old complete rookie to the bike and the track was amazing.

"He got caught up in a battle for the first corner in the second race and came off worse, from 22nd position we saw some real determination battling through to 13th before a bit too much youth full exuberance let him down!"

Team regular Linfoot held his qualifying position of fifth in race one, then took ninth in race two.

"I really enjoyed my weekend, the bike was flying and I really gelled with it, qualifying 5th and getting a good start set the first race up and I had good pace to run with them, my tyre spun on the rim and gave me a bit of a vibration and made it hard to hold off Simon Andrews for 4th, 5th was good in the end though.

"For the second race I battled with Josh Brookes for most of the race, ninth doesn't sound too good but there were six of us all in a pack together really close I feel great for Silverstone and can't wait to get back into it"