KENDAL speed ace James Ellison is keen erase the memory of round four of the British Superbikes Championship at Knockhill after entering unchartered waters.

For the first time this season, the 33-year-old failed to register a podium finish after crashing out of race one following a collision with Stuart Easton.

This triggered a series of events which ultimately resulted in the Lloyds British GBmoto Kawasaki rider recording an eighth-place finish in the second race.

But despite the disappointment of the weekend, Ellison remains third in the BSB Standings and is not prepared to dwell on a situation he could do little about.

“I literally crashed back down to earth, it was a terrible weekend,” he said.

“It was really disappointing but as a team we’re still in third place and still in the fight for the Championship.

“The other good thing is Josh Brookes, who is my main challenger at the minute, didn’t get any podium credits either so we didn’t really lose anything.

“We just need to redeem ourselves at Brands Hatch next time out. We have ridden well every weekend so far with a 100 per cent podium finish record.

“The bike has been really reliable up to now so we’ve just got to forget about the weekend and pretend it didn’t happen.

“There is not much we can learn from it. We didn’t make any mistakes – we were knocked back through a fault not of our own making.

“As a team we didn’t do anything wrong and I don’t believe I rode any worse. It’s just a case of forgetting about it and pushing for some wins.”

Race one was won by triple BSB champion Ryuichi Kiyonari – the Japanese rider’s first win since 2011 – ahead of Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki duo Shane Byrne and Easton.

In the early stages, after looking to move ahead of Easton at the hairpin on lap two, the pair made contact as Ellison slid out of contention.

This had knock on effects which impacted upon race two, with Byrne taking full advantage of a mistake by Kiyonari to win by 0.176s.

“I had a real good start to race one and got up to third but was teeboned from behind by Stuart Easton which ruined the whole weekend and kicked off a chain of events,” added Ellison.

“We were penalised and lost position on the grid as I didn’t get a lap time. So even though I got hit by someone else I was moved back three rows and started from 14th.

“The crash also damaged the bike quite a lot so we had to put a whole new brake system in for race two and had some issues.

“We didn’t get time to test it and I couldn’t slow down and couldn’t make any passing manoeuvres.

“Again, I got a really good start, moving to seventh or eighth on the first lap but every time I overtook someone I couldn’t stop for the corner.

“I rode as hard as I could and battled through but had to settle for eighth.”