PBM Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne had to watch his rival, Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes take the MCE British Superbike title at his home track at Brands Hatch, after the quadruple-champ failed to beat the Australian this afternoon.
The Lambeth born rider admitted that ‘things haven’t really gone to plan’ this year and that Brookes and his R1 have been strong this season. But Byrne will be back next year on board a Ducati but now he will have to wait another year to win in an historic fifth BSB title.
The ZX-10R racer gave it everything today in race-one and finished in second, but it was not enough to displace Brookes from the top of the podium at the Kent track.
“This season, things haven’t really gone quite to plan. We had a plan from the word go, and I kind of threw that into disarray by crashing on the first day of pre-season testing, so we’ve been a little bit on the back foot but the race here today was the only one that could keep the championship alive. It was always going to be a bit of a long shot, because the competitiveness of Josh and the Yamaha is just another level at the moment,” said Byrne at the circuit.
“I knew I had to just do absolutely everything I could to try and stay in front, and when I got in front, I tried to go really fast without going too fast, hoping that you get the odd end of year hero that jumps on the podium and will do anything to get that podium.
I just thought that if I got a few more guys in the mix, maybe we could take some points off Josh, but every time he came past me, I just shut my eyes and let the brakes off. A few times it worked, but then one time he got past and went 1.1 quicker than me that lap and what can you do?
“I tried my absolute hardest all the way to the end and I promised the team I’d give 110 percent, I did everything to keep the championship alive, and these championships don’t come on the back of Kellogg’s Frosties packets - you have to earn them and Josh certainly earned it this year. There’s no disputing the fact he’s won however many races it’s been, been on the podium as many
times as he’s been, you can’t not deserve a championship after all that.
“I’ve won seven races this year so far and was hoping to win a couple maybe this weekend. Generally speaking, the performance I’ve put in this year would generally be good enough for a championship, but those guys took it to another level and thoroughly deserve the championship.”
