SHANE Byrne doubled up at Brands Hatch to take the second MCE British Superbike Championship race win - and with it another King of Brands trophy.
The Be Wiser Ducati rider had a much easier to run to the chequered flag, especially after main rival Josh Brookes fell at around the halfway point.
Polesitter Dan Linfoot got his Honda Racing machine off the line well and led into the first lap, as Byrne held second and Leon Haslam got his JG Speedfit Kawasaki into third.
This time, Byrne was in no mood to mess about and got into the lead almost immediately as he passed Linfoot later in the opening lap. Just behind, Haslam ran wide and lost three places as Brookes, Ellison and Iddon got through.
Byrne quickly built himself up a nice little lead, as Brookes moved up to second on the third lap as he passed Linfoot. And things went from bad to worse for the Honda Racing rider a lap later as he lost the front going into Druids and crashed out.
While Byrne was up front, Brookes was wasting little time in catching him up, setting a new lap record of 1’24.873 on his fourth lap as he moved a bit closer to the leader, while behind the battle for third raged between Tyco BMW’s Christian Iddon and the McAMS Yamaha of James Ellison.
Things remained the same for the next few laps, as Brookes kept within half a second of the leader, but it all went wrong for the Bringelly man on the ninth lap, when he crashed his Anvil Hire TAG Yamaha at Surtees.
This left Byrne with a nice clean run, as he had almost five seconds on Ellison who was running second, with Iddon just 0.2secs behind.
The next mover was Smiths BMW man Peter Hickman, who shoved Leon Haslam to one side and forced his way up to fourth on Lap 12.
From there, things at the front stayed as they were. Byrne slowly stretched his lead to eventually cross the line some 5.787secs ahead of Ellison, as Iddon came home 0.380secs adrift in third.
Iddon, who hadn’t realised Brookes had crashed out, believed he had finished fourth as he made his return after nearly three months out due to injury, and only realised he had banked a podium finish when he tried to enter parc ferme.
Hickman finished fourth ahead of Haslam, as the second JG Speedfit bike of Luke Mossey was sixth.
The second Honda Racing machine of Jason O’Halloran came over the line seventh, just 0.3 adrift of Mossey, as the ever-impressive Bradley Ray claimed his second top 10 of the day as he took eighth on the Buildbase Suzuki.
Michael Laverty on the second McAMS Yamaha finished ninth, while RAF Reserve Kawasaki rider Jake Dixon rounded-out the top 10.
