Horncastle's Aaron Silvester takes Silverstone victory

After dominating pre-season testing and taking a win in the opening No Limits 600 Series, which he only entered for some additional testing time, Silvester arrived at Silverstone full of confidence. After a solid opening day in cold conditions, he stepped up the pace in Saturday’s qualifying to secure third place on the grid.

In Sunday’s 20 lap race, Silvester made a great start and settled in to a six-rider scrap for the lead that lasted for several laps. Two of the group fell away but Silvester was still involved in the intense battle for victory and on lap 12 he made his move and hit the front.

His timing was perfect and with clear track ahead he started to open up a small gap. Then, on lap 13, the race was red flagged due to a crash at turn one and with two thirds distance completed, the race was declared a result with Silvester the winner by 0.151 seconds.

After the race Silvester said: “I am absolutely over the moon to bring it home on the top step of the podium. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see out the rest of the race due to the red flag and I hope all the riders involved are okay. Huge respect to all the riders in the top group today; it was fantastic racing, all clean, safe, and thoroughly enjoyable.

"I can’t thank my team, girlfriend, family and sponsors enough. I couldn't do it without them. What a sterling job the A & J Racing team do too. We are on a tight budget with an older machine but we don’t just turn up to make up the numbers. We’re here to win! Roll on Oulton Park in three weeks’ time.”

On the other side of the garage, younger brother Max had a more difficult but nevertheless solid weekend running in the same championship. With little pre-season testing and no time at all in the dry, it took a while to get up to speed on the new slick tyres.

Max finished the opening day in 30th place and he would maintain that position through qualifying to start from 30th on Sunday.

During the race he improved his lap time by over half a second from his qualifying time and battled with other riders throughout to bring the bike home in 28th place but with a huge amount of information to take in to the next race which takes place at Oulton Park over the first May Bank Holiday weekend.