Horsman takes Silverstone win in opening round of British Talent Cup

17-year-old Cameron Horsman took a well-deserved race victory after a 28 lap battle in the second race at theSilverstone BSB meeting at the weekend. After his third place in race one he is the early joint leader of the championship.

The Forest Hill youngster qualified well on the Saturday, putting his 250cc Honda Moto3 machine on the 3rd row of the grid in 7th, cutting his time from Friday’s practice to 1:02.127 just a quarter of a second off pole. The top fifteen riders were covered by only a second.

Away fromn the lights in the first race and Horsman made a superb start, gaining three places by the start of the second lap.

He was soon battling for the lead and by the halfway stage Horsman had managed to open a half-a-second gap at the front from the chasing pack. However, they slowly started to claw back the advantage.

Going into the final laps Horsman had managed to maintain the lead although under intense pressure and Scott Ogden and Brain Hart managed to squeeze through in the last couple of corners, leaving Horsman to take the flag for a fine 3rd place in the opening race, missing out on victory by 0.014 seconds.

Horsman made a solid start in the second race at the Northamptonshire circuit, running seventh in the opening laps trying to stay out of trouble. Making his way through towards the front of the field, on lap ten pulled off an audacious move, passing two riders through Maggots to take the lead.

By lap twelve Horsman tried to make a break at the front, however, the chasing swarm of nine riders had other ideas and quickly pulled him back.

The battle for the lead changed constantly with Horsman always in the thick of it.

On the final lap, Jack Hart overtook Horsman going into the first corner. Horsman hit back at Maggots to regain the race lead as they headed four abreast along the Wellington Straight.

Despite immense pressure from Jack Hart and Scott Ogden, Horsman retained his composure and took his first, well-deserved, British Talent Cup victory.

Cameron Horsman said, “It started off slowly in FP1. We made some changes to the bike so FP2 was better. In qualifying I got held up but seventh was OK because it was all so close. I was happy with that. In race one I led for most of it but got slipstreamed into the second to last corner. Race two was similar, I led for a lot but this time I knew what I had to do on the last lap in the final corners and managed to get the win.”

Photo by Kerry Rawson