Be Wiser Ducati’s Shane Byrne is feeling ‘relatively good’ about the weekend ahead after emerging quickest in today’s Bennetts British Superbike Championship free practice.

Byrne was one of five riders who opted to sit out of FP1 this morning, leaving him just this afternoon’s 45-minute session to get some track time.

At his local track, the defending champ clocked a lap of 45.384secs to top the timesheets this afternoon, and says while he was a bit disappointed not to go out this morning, it would’ve been pointless.

“I’m feeling relatively good after the second session, I think that not getting to ride this morning was a bit of a bummer but the conditions were kind of quite wet in a lot of places.

“There was a dry line but it was damp and greasy and horrible everywhere else – I don’t think there was anything to learn from riding around in that so we waited until this afternoon and just did a few laps.

“When you consider you only need three or four laps to understand any changes to your bike here, there’s no real point in going out and risking it just for the sake of riding around for the fun of it.”

Byrne is now feeling happy ahead of tomorrow, and believes with a few changes overnight he will be in a good place to capitalise in qualifying

“The bike seems to be so-so, but every time you come to Brands Hatch Indy it’s the same scenario, it’s such a short and scratchy little track but you’ve got to get everything absolutely perfect to get the lap time.

“You just spend the whole time trying to get the rhythm and hoping that you’re going to be fast enough on Sunday. We have some changes to make to the bike for sure, but so will everyone else.”