Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne has no ill feeling's towards Samsung Honda’s Alex Lowes after both bikes clashed in the second MCE British Superbike race at Assen on Sunday, which resulted in Byrne hitting the gravel.
A misjudged manoeuvre from Lowes on lap four saw Byrne crash out at over 130mph, luckily without serious injury. The Derby lad went on to win but race officials investigated the incident afterwards and subsequently excluded him for his part meaning the one point gap between Byrne and Lowes remains going into Silverstone in two weeks time.
In race one the reigning champ was fighting it out with Lowes again for the top spot on the rostrum. In a frantic last lap with multiple lead changes, Byrne had to settle for second place just behind the Honda rider. But the triple champion is now moving on from the incident in race two, and is concentrating on the next round.
I'm OK, or OK as you can expect to be after crashing at 270kmh. Alex made a mistake but it's all cool, we let the officials decide what the outcome was as that's their job and we and our teams both respect that. It happened, the outcome is sorted and I'm just concentrating on getting myself fixed up in time for Silverstone,” said Byrne.
Team owner Paul Bird, and his team now have to repair two bikes, as both Byrne and new team-mate Noriyuki Haga crashed in race two, but Bird is satisfied with the decision made by the racing officials over the incident involving his number one rider and Lowes.
"Everyone makes mistakes in racing and we accept that, just right now it's hard to take that my team is left with two crashed motorbikes to repair through the fault of others. The good part is Shakey and Nori are OK and we just left it to the officials to sort out as that is their job and we are satisfied with the outcome. We now look to the last two rounds and hope we have some better luck," said Bird.