With just a 21-point gap to Bennetts British Superbike series leader Tarran Mackenzie, this weekend at Brands Hatch will be Tommy Bridewell's best chance so far of winning the title.

After a 2020 season plagued by Covid delays and chatter from his Oxford Racing Ducati Panigale, the Devizes rider is ready to pounce on any errors and says he will fight fire with fire if need be.

"Last year I was absolutely fundamentally plagued with chatter. There was no way around, I couldn't get around it. I was just fucked. Everywhere. Then I'd go to circuits thinking like, 'There's no chance it will chatter here and then it would'," Bridewell told bikesportnews.com from a layby en route to buy a telehandler.

"So, the chatter was a big, big part of it for me but I was doing too much as well. I was racing motorbikes and also trying to renovate houses at the same time. I was literally, Thursday morning still pissing about up the builders' merchants and then first thing Monday morning, I was straight up the builders merchants.

"It was too much. In my defence, part of that was because I normally go right, 'I've got x y and Z months, off of training, or I've got a month off training then I can start building back up slowly. Then every time we'd start again it was like 'oh no, the season's delayed'. And every time I'd think I've got three months now before the season starts and then it would get delayed another month. And then all of a sudden it was almost like, well I'd just as well carry on doing this house then I'll start to train the next month, the next month, the next month.

"But I'm always fit and I'm always, always ready to go but fundamentally last year what hampered us was chatter and just finger wasn't on the pulse, shall we say, like it needed to be."

As always, with BSN at least, Bridewell is brutally honest about his efforts at Donington's penultimate round laast time out and what he sees this weekend bringing.

"I fucked it at Donington to be honest by crashing out in race one. That to me was slightly frustrating because if I'm honest, I was sat in second, I had Lee Bob behind me, we had about a second and a half over Christian. From Christian, it was like 10 seconds back to Jason and Tarran, I had all but a 10/15 second gap over my main championship rivals, which then would have made me go, 'Do you know what fourth's good enough' a bit like I did in the last race.

"But we just missed the boat with that a little bit. That's partly my fault and partly the team's fault because we should have had the conversation beforehand to have gone right, what do we need to know, to always be 100 per cent. Because it's so crucial at the minute that I need to know every, everything. On my pitboard in the last race, I knew exactly how far Jason was behind me, I could obviously see Tarran had gone out with mechanical, I had all the information I needed to know to weigh up the risk/reward.

"Christian was in front. I tried to stay with the top three and I couldn't, so when I saw I had a 25 second lead over fifth, I was like, 'That's all I can do today and that's good enough'. But yeah, I was lucky Tarran went out with a mechanical because if he hadn't, the championship would have been, a tricky, tricky window of overhaul, but it's closed the four of us up.

"Tarran's in the driving seat with a 10 point lead, and then it's literally, Jason, Christian, and me all gunning for him. So, I think it's going to be an interesting weekend.

"My approach should be, I'll fight fire with fire. I have no problem with racing clean, if you look at Oulton Park, every single pass I made, I never ran an inch offline, I never sat anyone up. I never took anyone out. You don't have to.

"I could easily out-brake, Christian or Jason in to turn one, swing over to the left and fucking put them straight in the grass if I want, it's a piece of piss to do, but I wouldn't want them to do that to me, so why should I do that to them? And I do feel, between me, Christian, Jason, and a few of the others, there is a lot of respect within riders. Unfortunately there are the standard candidates that don't seem to heed that, you know, you can't ride the same with them.

So if someone wants to come under me and sit me up and run me up over the grass then 100 per cent, hand on my heart be prepared that I won't come under you, I will just poleaxe you, it is that simple.

"So, I'm more than happy to fight fire with fire and if that's the way it goes, I will, but strategy wise, is really just to carry on doing what we've done all year. Because otherwise, what do I do? Do I go out in race one and go 'Right, I'm leading the race, Tarran's in second, Jason's in third, Christian's in fourth. What do you do?'

"I just need to go and win the race really. But if I'm sat in second, Danny Buchan's leading the race, and I see on my pitboard Jason's out, Tarran's out. I don't need to win that race. So for me, the big factor of knowing what's going on around me is down to my pit board.

"I need to know every ounce of information for me to be able to weigh up the risk to reward. Whereas if every single race is me, Tarran, Jason and Christian out front by five seconds then it is just a dogfight, you know, I don't need to know anything on my pitboard, just got to win the race really. so yeah is quite complicated really when you think about it, but it also could be quite simple, in the same aspect."