MULTIPLE and reigning British Sidecar Championship title winners Pete Founds and his passenger Jevan Walmsley wasted no time in showing their speed at the weekend as the first round of the 2023 season started at a very damp Croft, writes Ste McNorton.

With a slippery and testing track, the No72 Honda showed no signs of hanging about as the lads took their first pole position of the season.

A three-hour wait until Saturday's first race brought a drier track, albeit still tricky.

As the lights went out, Northwich rider Founds made a decent start but lost his lead into the first corner as the No99 bike of father-and-son pairing Steve and Matty Ramaden took the lead.

Founds and Walmsley stayed second for three laps and seemed to be losing time, but fourth time around they made up the gap, made the pass and hit the front.

From there Founds pulled away to take a comfortable win over his brother Alan Founds and his passenger Jake Lowther.

Sunday's race featured a reverse format for the top six, so Founds and Walmsley started on row three.

TF72 made a better start and was up two places so that by the end of lap one the battle for the lead involved the two same protagonists as race one.

But this time Founds was past the No99 Ramsdens bike by lap three, and that was the last the field would see of the pair as they streaked away to take their second win of the weekend by over 10 seconds.

So with a great start to the season, the team heads to Donington for round two in just over four weeks which will be the last chance for testing things before they head off to the Isle of Man TT.