Ollie Merrilees suffered in the heat at round seven of the MRO Supersport 600 series at Brands Hatch.

The Crawley teenager failed to finish for only the second time this season after his Yamaha R6 machine over-heated.

Friday's practice session had gone well for the Dot.COM Racing team with Merrilees putting in his fastest ever lap around the 1.2 mile Indy circuit at Brands with a time of 50.5 seconds.

However, qualifying did not go so well and the 19-year-old had to start 23rd on the grid, although just one second covered the top 24 riders.

Merrilees said: "The Supersport 600 series is the closest and most exciting racing in the country and just one slip up can cost you dearly.

"I was somewhat disappointed with my qualifying but the machine was running hot and I was losing power.

"I did manage to get some quick laps in but not quick enough to just move me up on the grid as I would have liked.

"The session was stopped early on due to an incident on the track and I lost my momentum. Still we are getting closer to the front at every meeting.

"Starting from 23rd on the grid did not give me the best position and I knew unless I got a really good start I would be balked going into Paddock Hill bend.

"I got the worst start I have had all season and was in 26th place by the end of lap one.

"Trying to make up places proved to be impossible and in the severe heat the machine started to seriously overheat and I had a massive loss of power, so rather than suffer machine failure and causing damaged to the engine I decided to call it a day."

Team owner Paul Merrilees, Ollie's father, said: "It was really frustrating watching Ollie going backwards.

"After Saturday's qualifying we changed the water in the machine and all I can think was that we got an airlock in the system.

"We will be going all through the machine before the next meeting at Cadwell Park on August 17."

After failing to finish, Merrilees is 23rd in the championship with four rounds remaining.

In the Supersport 400 race, Portslade's Andy Ballard finished tenth on his Kawasaki ZXR while Crawley's Juliet Manning was 26th in the same race.

In the Powerbike class, Brighton's Kenny Everest finished eighth on his Suzuki GSXR which lifted him one place in the championship up to fourth spot.

Everest currently has 55 points but is 30 points adrift of Ben Mossey, who finished second last Sunday. Richard Norris, who came third, continues to lead the championship with 145 points, 49 clear of Danny Imberg who was fourth at Brands.

Luke Palmer, from Plumpton Green, finished 20th on his Yamaha R1 while Uckfield's Andy Denyer failed to finish on his Suzuki GSXR and has slipped to 14th in the standings.