A SUPERB qualifying went unrewarded on track for Andover racer Jake Archer at Knockhill in the last round of the British GP2 series.

Qualifying saw the 24 riders of the British Supersport and British GP2 classes got their qualifying session underway late morning.

With 14 laps completed Archer had clocked a best time of 50.974. He returned to the garage to give feed back to the team and make some final adjustments.

He then went back out to put in another long stint of 15 laps. Pushing hard he improved his lap time to 50.206 which put him 15th on the combined grid and fifth in the British GP2 class.

As soon as the race one got underway it became immediately apparent Archer had a problem. The rain had got into the pit limiter button which stops you speeding when you are going in and out of the pit lane. So on lap two he was forced to retire.

This meant he started race two at the back of the grid and fought hard to get up to sixth in his class.

Archer said, “It might sound daft when you look at the race results but it was a really good weekend. Our qualifying was superb and when I saw the pace of the riders in the wet first race I knew I could have done really well. As it was we had the unforeseen problem with the pit limiter button. That really compromised our weekend because in race two I had to start last on the grid. Yes, the results were far from ideal but we know we are getting things right with bike set up and I’m much more confident in riding it.”

Round six of the British Superbike Championship and its support series is at Snetterton on the weekend of July 19/21.