Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki snatched a tight MCE British Superbike race one victory at Oulton Park to claim his third consecutive win of the year so far. But Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes was not going to make it easy for the triple champion and was constantly trying to get the number one spot throughout the eighteen lap race.

It was a rather lonely race for GBmoto Kawasaki’s James Ellison as he finished six seconds behind the leading duo and two seconds behind Milwaukee Yamaha’s Tommy Bridewell and Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s Stuart Easton.

But Brookes will start from pole in race two after setting a 1’35.411 and clocked a new lap record in the process by one two-hundredths of a second. The lap record has stood since 2006 and was set by Ryuichi Kiyonari.

Drama happened on the opening lap on the first corner as RAF Reserves Honda’s Simon Andrews made contact with another rider and he crashed out at Old Hall Corner causing a yellow flag. He managed to walk away from the crash which saw his bike propel high into the air.

Byrne got the hole-shot on the first lap followed by Brookes and Ellison, but the pace of the race slowed down as the safety car came out for four rotations. When the yellow flags went in Byrne powered on ahead, with Ellison getting the better of Brookes at Old Hall to take second on lap seven.

GBmoto Kawasaki’s Chris Walker was in fourth on lap seven and was catching up with Brookes, but he crashed uninjured at Knickerbrook. This time his bike did not go up in flames like it did in FP3, and he was able to walk away. With Walker out of contention for a podium place Easton was able to make his way to fourth, but was two seconds adrift of the leading trio of Byrne, Ellison and Brookes on lap nine.

PR Racing’s Keith Farmer also took a tumble but this time at Druids – but he was unhurt on lap ten. Elsewhere the leading pack upped the pace by a second over Easton, but Ellison went wide allowing Brookes to go into third, and enabling Easton to get closer to a provisional top three finish. Bridewell on lap twelve hadn’t given up and overtook Easton, with Kiyonari the next in line to get the better of the Scot to take fifth.

Now there was a battle of the Milwaukee and the Buildbase bikes, and on lap 13 the triple champ made a move on the Devizes rider at Lodge Corner to go into fourth. With three laps to go Tyco Suzuki’s John Hopkins retired with an issue while inside the top ten but had to slowly make his way to the pits.

On lap fifteen Brookes started to up his pace and closed the gap on Byrne by 1.1 seconds and was the fastest rider on the Cheshire track by 1’35.512. The Aussie was not giving up the chase that easily and on the penultimate lap closed the gap by 0.5 seconds. Meanwhile Kiyo had a technical problem at Island while in fourth, meaning Bridewell and Easton were able to make it into the top five.

On the final lap Brookes was right on top of the bike of Byrne at Druids but Byrne had that added edge and crossed the line in first, followed by Brookes and Ellison. Buildbase BMW’s James Westmoreland, Tsingtao’s Jon Kirkham and Millsport Ducati’s Jakub Smrz rounded off the top ten. The former World Superbike rider is experiencing a back problem, and bravely made it to the end of the race.