British Supersport: Market Rasen rider Tim Neave makes his mark on debut

Neave was watched by his twin brother Tom who is sidelined while recovering from a shoulder operation.

The weather played its part in proceedings at the Leicestershire track, with heavy rain and freezing temperatures on Saturday, dry and cold on Sunday before a return to torrential rain on Bank Holiday Monday.

After qualifying in 24th place for Sunday’s eight-lap sprint race, Neave began his race from a eighth-row grid position and got away to a fantastic start.

He completed the first lap in 12th place and then made steady progress up to 10th place on lap four before passing Bradley Perie one lap later.

But in turn Neave was overtaken by Danny Booth on lap six and relegated back to 10th where he remained to the chequered flag.

He said: “P10 in the sprint race, after starting from 24th, I was really pleased to come through and into the points after a terrible day on Saturday.

“I owe big thanks to Steady, Fred and Jeff for working non-stop since we got here to get the bike running properly.”

After heavy overnight rain caused a lot of hard work by the groundstaff and marshals, Easter Monday’s feature race eventually went ahead as scheduled on a drying track.

Neave started the 16-lap affair from the fifth row and again made a terrific start, making up four places on the first lap to take up ninth place.

He held station for most of the race, but on lap 14 Kurt Wigley pushed him back a place.

In a twist of fate, however, Wigley crashed at the last corner on the final lap, gifting ninth place back to Neave who gladly crossed the line to take a further seven championship points.

This brought his total for the weekend to 13 points in the rider standings.

The next round is at Brands Hatch on the short and technical Indy circuit on Sunday, April 15.