JAMES Ellison refused to be too downbeat after his chances of claiming victory in the opening weekend of the MCE British Superbike were scuppered by a crash in qualifying.

Kendal's Ellison was forced to start at the back of the grid at Silverstone after falling unhurt at Farm.

The JG Speedfit Kawasaki speedster managed to slice his way through the field to finish 13th on his ZX-10R in race one.

With the team working frantically ahead of the second outing, Ellison began in 17th position by virtue of his fastest times in race one.

With more changes made between races, Ellison was feeling far more comfortable on his Kawasaki as he again carved through the field, crossing the line in eighth and setting the fifth fastest lap of the race.

Ellison's teammate Peter Hickman claimed his second ever BSB victory in race two.

Ellison said: "It was definitely a weekend of highs and lows for me and the whole team. I don’t want to blow smoke their way but they’ve had one hell of a job on this winter building three new Superbikes with a brand new machine, so to come here and claim pole and a win is incredible.

"On my side, we’ve just suffered a little with a lack of track time. We made a massive step forward on the first day and could go quicker but then we didn’t have the weather to properly tweak things, the first time we had the opportunity was in qualifying but I threw it up the road!

"It was entirely my fault and definitely put us on the back foot, race one was good and gave us a direction to go in for the second race, where we went faster again.

"Overall, it’s been a really productive weekend. There’s still some things we need to try but with another test ahead of Oulton I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to run at the front.”