British Talent Cup: O’Gorman and Bourne Victorious in Donington Opener

The new-look British Talent Cup began its 2020 season in Donington Park last weekend, as the series entered a new era. 

Compared to previous years where all of the bikes had been prepared by personnel employed by the championship and all had the same livery, in 2020 there is more autonomy for the riders and their teams, who run the bikes themselves now, and have the agency to decorate the bike as they wish. 

The #72 rider, Casey O’Gorman, on his Microlise Cresswell Racing machine started the first race from pole position, having claimed the top spot in qualifying by 0.057 seconds from Charlie Farrer, on the #71 Victoria House Racing Academy/Mortimer Racing bike. Franco Bourne, the #17 rider aboard the Franco Bourne Racing/SP125 Racing machine, completed the front row for the first race of the new season. 

It was O’Gorman who made the holeshot from pole position, perhaps unsurprisingly considering his smaller stature. In fact, that smaller frame would prove advantageous throughout the race, as on Donington National’s short straights, the #72’s rivals could not get close enough to make an out-braking manoeuvre into the final chicane, which is one of the hardest braking points on the circuit. In any case, O’Gorman was strong on the brakes as well, so his opponents had to find other passing spots, and the Old Hairpin after Craner Curves was one of the preferred spots for the likes of Franco Bourne. 

But O’Gorman’s stay at the front, although intermittent, was commanding, and whilst the likes of Bourne, Farrer, the #16 City Lifting/SP125 Racing machine of Harvey Claridge and #7 Jamie Lyons (Jamie Lyons Racing) fought behind there was a consistent calmness of O’Gorman out front. 

Eventually, the five-rider group broke down to three, as Claridge and then Lyons dropped out of the fight for the lead, leaving just the front row starters of O’Gorman, Bourne and Farrer to decide the victor between themselves. 

The three stayed together until a mistake from Farrer in the chicane at the end of lap 17 gave O’Gorman a second, and that was an advantage that the #72 would maintain almost until the end of the race. 

A late charge from the two behind, Bourne and Farrer, brought the latter to within four tenths of O’Gorman by the line, but it was too little too late for either of them to be able to seriously challenge O’Gorman for the win. 

This meant that Casey O’Gorman took the first win of the 2020 British Talent Cup season, in relatively comfortable fashion, ahead of Franco Bourne, who put a late move on Charlie Farrer in the final chicane on the last lap to take second, and demoting the #71 to third.

After fighting in the leading group for over half the race, Jamie Lyons ended up a distant fourth, five seconds off the win and three seconds ahead of what was a well-contested battle for fifth. 

Coming out on top of that battle was the #8 WAM rider, Eddie O’Shea, who was able to pull clear to the tune of three seconds by the line, leaving the remnants of the fight he had won to battle over sixth place.  

It was Corey Tinker, the #37 Stauff Fluid Power Academy rider, who won out in that fight for the top six, beating seventh-placed Bailey Stewart Campbell (#99 151s S-C Racing) and Harvey Claridge, the #16 dropping back quite significantly from the lead group by the end of the race. 

Behind Claridge lay a 26-second gap back to ninth place, which went to the #74 Wilson Racing rider, James Cook, who was just over three seconds ahead of the #46 rider, D&D Racing’s Elliott Dufton, who completed the top 10 in the first race. 

The #15 of Harrison Crosby (Banks Racing) took 11th place ahead of the #43 of Ryan Hitchcock (Wilson Racing) in 12th and the #48 of Ollie Walker (Moto Rapido/SP125 Racing) who was 13th at the line and the final rider to finish on the lead lap. 

Sullivan Mounsey on the #4 Lloyd & Jones PR Racing bike was 14th, ahead of the #14 of Evann Pendrill (VHC Racing) who took the final point in the first race of the 2020 season. 

Just missing out on the points in 16th was the #11 of Rossi Dobson who finished just under two seconds ahead of the #44 Ashcourt Racing machine of Lucas Hill. Then came Gary Scott on the #69 Scott Racing bike, ahead of the #57 Wilson Racing machine of Josh Hiatt and the #66 Four Anjels Racing rider, Annabel Thomas who completed the top 20. 

21st at the finish was Alexander Rowan (#65 Alexander Rowan Racing), and the final classified rider was the #90 JDF Racing rider, Harry Cook.

There were four retirements, the first of which was the #50 of Aditya Behal (Urban Nomads Racing). Evan Belford (#52 City Lifting by RS Racing), Calum Beach (#27 Calum Beach Racing/SP125 Racing) and Rhys Coates (#2 Ernie Coates Race Support) all also retired. 

The second race took an immediately different shape to the first, as Saturday’s third-place finisher Charlie Farrer crashed out on the opening lap at Craner Curves with a dramatic high-side that he seemed to escape relatively unscathed. 

The absence of Farrer meant that there was a breakaway group of three riders, with O’Gorman leading from Harvey Claridge and Franco Bourne. By lap seven they had pulled a significant gap between them and the rest of the field, only for that advantage to be wiped out when the red flag came out for a crash further down the field. 

In the fight for fourth, there were six riders in a group, and perhaps unsurprisingly they eventually made contact. Between the Old Hairpin and Starkey’s, the racing line sees riders cut from the far-left of the track to the far-right, and in this transition there was contact between the #99 of Bailey Stewart-Campbell and the #7 of Jamie Lyons, who crashed quite heavily. Behind, Corey Tinker had nowhere to go, hit the stricken bike of Lyons and went down himself on the #37 machine. The red flag was thrown quite quickly by race direction, but fortunately both riders were able to make their respective ways to the barriers. It was unfortunate for both Lyons and Tinker, who both would have fancied themselves to take charge of that fourth-placed battle and, aside from missing the points to go with that, missed the experience that comes with racing in a group like that and that is so important at this early stage of their respective road racing careers. 

After the red flag, the race was shortened significantly to just 10 laps, and thus the nature of the race shifted once more. 

Still, though, it was once again O’Gorman with the holeshot and the early lead. However, unlike the first start, it was a four-rider group that O’Gorman was leading as he, Claridge and Bourne had been joined in the leading group by the #52 of Evann Belford. 

On lap three, the race changed again, as a move from Claridge on O’Gorman forced the #72 onto the kerb on the exit of Starkey’s. Claridge was not particularly liberal with the space left on the outside for O’Gorman, and the race one winner lost the front over the kerbs and was out of the race. In truth, O’Gorman was quite fortunate to not be collected by one of the other riders in the group, and to escape unharmed. 

The crash for O’Gorman left, as in the first start, three riders at the front, with Claridge now leading from Bourne and Belford. 

The race continued like this for a couple of laps before a mistake by Belford at the final chicane saw an end to his podium challenge. The #52 didn’t lose much time directly from the mistake, but it seemed to dent his confidence and he quickly dropped back from the leading duo of Claridge and Bourne, who fought it out between themselves for the win in the second half of the race. 

It was Claridge who led onto the last lap, but the layout of Donington National means that the final corner is the best overtaking opportunity of the lap. Bourne was able to get a strong exit from Coppice, and that put him in position to slipstream alongside Claridge down the back straight. Then, Bourne was strong on the brakes, and nailed the first apex of the chicane to mean that Claridge was unable to square him off on the run to the line. 

It was a beautifully executed move by Bourne to take his first win of the 2020 season, and to put him at the top of the championship after the retirements of Farrer and O’Gorman. 

Although Claridge would have been disappointed to miss out on the win having led until the final corner, it was a strong response to a difficult first race from the #16, who will hope to take the first win at the next round in Snetterton. 

Following his mistake that cost him a shot at the win, Belford dropped out of podium contention in the second half of the race, and in the finished fourth behind Bailey Stewart-Campbell who took his first podium of the season in third place. 

There was a problem for Eddie O’Shea on the first lap of the restarted race, and that dropped him down to the back end of the top 20. But the #8 put in a strong performance to come back to fifth by the end of the race, and the pace he used to do that will encourage him for the next races. 

Behind O’Shea was Elliott Dufton in sixth place, Ollie Walker in seventh, Ryan Hitchcock in eighth, Harrison Crosby in ninth  – Hitchcock and Crosby taking the top 10 having missed it the day before – and James Cook who completed a consistent weekend, going 9-10 across the weekend. 

Sullivan Mounsey missed out on the top 10 by only 0.7 seconds and finished 11th ahead of Gary Scott, Rossi Dobson, Rhys Coates and Calum Beach – all of whom took their first points of the season having missed out in Saturday’s race. 

Evann Pendrill missed out this time in 16th, 0.152 seconds behind 15th and the final point, and less than one tenth of a second behind him was Lucas Hill in 17th. Alexander Rowan and Harry Cook were the final classified riders, in 18th and 19th, respectively. 

From the restarted race there were three retirements: Annabel Thomas, the aforementioned Casey O’Gorman, and Aditya Behal.