on the front row and running second until high-siding in race one, despite having no race engineer for the weekend. At Knockhill he took pole position, and followed a fourth in race one with his first career podium in race two, passing Leon Haslam for second with two laps to go. He ultimately took fourth in the championship, ahead of the factory Honda of Karl Harris. He took Harris' factory ride for 2007, alongside reigning champion Ryuichi Kiyonari of Japan. After four-second places, he finally took his first win in the second race at Mondello Park, after dominating wet practice but struggling in the dry first race. A double victory at Knockhill followed, taking him to within nine points of Kiyonari at the top of the standings – retaining this position after Oulton Park in which each HM Plant Honda rider won once and crashed once. He ultimately finished as the series runner-up, 26 points behind Kiyonari and 20 ahead of Leon Haslam. Also in 2007, he raced with Kiyonari and won a three-hour endurance race, and the pair was then entered for the Suzuka 8-Hour race on a factory Honda machine. Plans for him to contest the British MotoGP round on a Team Roberts bike were scrapped in favour of extra Suzuka preparation. He attended the 2007 World Superbike round at Brands Hatch, as he began to explore international options. Supersport World Championship In September 2007 he signed a three-year progressive deal with Ten Kate Honda to ride in the Supersport World Championship for the 2008 season, and the Superbike World Championship for the 2009 and 2010 seasons. He turned down the option of staying in British Superbikes with either HM Plant Honda or move to Rizla Suzuki, and turned down a World Superbike ride with the factory Xerox Ducati team. In his first race at Losail in Qatar, he crashed, badly injuring a finger. At Assen he challenged for a first WSS win, losing by 0.014 seconds to teammate Andrew Pitt. He did win for Ten Kate at the Donington Park British Supersport race, which the team entered as practice for the later WSS race there. His first World Supersport win came at Brno, and he immediately followed this with a second win at Brands Hatch, although the race was stopped early after the fatal accident of Craig Jones with seven laps remaining in the race. A third