BARRY BURRELL is pumped up for podium success at Croft after his maiden topthree finish last time out.

The Bishop Auckland-based Buildbase BMW rider is competing in the Evo class of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship after moving up from the Superstock 1000 Championship.

He is currently seventh in the standings and the leading BMW rider after the opening four races at Brands Hatch and Oulton Park, where he notched up finishes of sixth, seventh, third and seventh, respectively.

However, those statistics do not tell the whole story as Burrell has suffered a fair bit of frustration to this point.

“Things haven’t gone as I expected, to be honest,” he said. “The first round was a bit of an eye-opener, not so much for myself, but for the bike.

“We thought it would be a lot closer to the front than it was, straight out of the crate, but it wasn’t and we have had to do a lot of work with it.

“It has won everything in Supersport trim, but in Superbikes it has always struggled. We thought we had found the secret, but obviously not.”

Consequently, Burrell said he was a long way off the pace at Brands Hatch and with only a week between there and the second round, there was little time to make any adjustments.

“But we got a big breakthrough on the Monday morning at Oulton Park in the warm-up,” he said.

“We tried something simple and it made the bike so much easier to ride. From there on, we got a podium in the first race and nearly got another one in the second race, but I hit a kerb and buckled the wheel.”

From feeling a little flat, Burrell is now far more optimistic about his chances.

“It was a positive weekend and the team were really happy,” he said. “When I got the podium it made all the hard work worthwhile.

“I was in the garage until 11pm every night just about, going through every single little bit on the bike to try and make it work, but it was unrideable. Now that’s all paid off.”

Burrell is looking forward to performing in front of his home crowd, although he said he would be treating it like any other race.

‘Ithink I will be more fired up from the podium, than from being at my local track,” he said. “It is my home race, but it won’t make that much difference. It will be nice when people come up at the pit walk and you can understand what they are saying and it will probably give me a little bit extra.

“I’d like to get two podiums if I can, but it won’t be easy.”

While the team is still finding its feet a little, Burrell said it aimed to be mixing it at the front before too long.

“The team is looking at the first five rounds for development and then pushing on for wins in the Evo and ultimately top tens if we can,” he said.

“I think a top ten by the end of the year is achievable, but when that will come I don’t know. It will have to be the right track on the right day.”