JAMES Ellison rode a fantastic race to get into the points at his home Hertz British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Aboard the Claiming Rules Team (CRT) specification Aprilia ART and cheered on by a partisan 65,000 crowd, the 31-year-old from Kendal scored 17th fastest time in qualifying, meaning a row seven start.

His cause wasn't helped when he suffered a crash in MotoGP morning warm up.

But the former World Endurance Champion and double European Superstock Champion bounced back as he fought his way through the field over the 20-lap race to claim an impressive 14th place and add to the points he scored at the French Grand Prix at Le Mans last month for the Penrith-based Paul Bird Motorsport team.

Ellison said: "Overall, it's a good, positive result and I'm pleased with scoring more points although the problems we encountered in qualifying didn't help us.

“It's vitally important to get some fast laps in on new tyres and I have to figure that out myself because the further up the grid we are, the better chance we have in the race.

“We made a big step forward with the electronics this weekend which, in turn, helped the chatter problem so thanks to the team and to Aprilia for working hard on that as it showed in the race.”

Ellison also thanked the support of the crowd and his sponsors at PBMUK.

Paul Bird, team owner was pleased with a solid weekend for Ellison.

"It was a solid weekend for James and the PBMUK team. We just need to find a little more speed in the first part of the race and then we'll be regularly challenging the leading CRT riders.

“To see the support we had this weekend blew us away and just goes to show how popular and important a British team is to fans at the British Grand Prix."

The two points see Ellison remain in 15th place on seven points.

Results - Hertz British Grand Prix 1 Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Yamaha Factory Racing; 2 Casey Stoner (AUS) Repsol Honda Team; 3 Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda Team; 4 Alvaro Bautista (SPA) San Carlo Honda Gresini; 5 Ben Spies (USA) Yamaha Factory Racing; 6 Cal Crutchlow (GBR) Monster Yamaha Tech 3; 14 James Ellison (GBR) Paul Bird Motorsport.