Although unable to replicate the wins and podiums from earlier in the season, Kyle Ryde remained both positive and philosophical after round five of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch.

 
The Rich OMG Racing Yamaha rider struggled in Friday’s free practice sessions and found himself down in 17th place which meant he had to go into Q1 on Saturday. Gaining over a second in pace, he duly got his weekend back on track and fifth in Q2 put him in a much better frame of mind.
 
Three solid finishes of fifth and two sevenths kept him in fifth place overall and firmly in one of the Showdown positions with the Nottinghamshire rider recognising the importance of still scoring well when the job in hand’s that bit more difficult.
 
“Friday was a bit of a disaster and I’d have to say my weekend started Saturday morning,” he admitted. “That’s when we started to do something with the bike but I already felt a bit down on some of the lads. Brad was a little bit the same so I think we’ve both done really well considering what we were dealt with on Friday. I’m real proud of myself not to get worse as the weekend’s gone on.
 
“In the first two races I finished where I started and then in the last race gained two positions and Ryan (Saxelby, crew chief) made the bike the best it had felt all weekend so that’s very positive for the end of the season if we make it into the Showdown.
 
“We needed to try something ahead of the last race to make it better just in case we’re in the Showdown come the final round here at the end of the season. We didn’t just do that and also took five seconds off my race time.”
 
“The Showdown’s obviously the aim. At the start of the season we were real close and while, obviously, you think about winning the championship, you’ve got to be realistic and some people in front of me have been in the championship a lot longer than what I have.
 
“This my first real opportunity to get into the Showdown and the objective, if you can’t win races or get onto the podium, is to finish fifth, sixth or seventh which is what we did this weekend.”