Luke Mossey took a surprise pole position for this afternoon’s Bennetts British Superbike Championship race at Brands Hatch, the TAG Honda rider lapping 0.270s quicker than Christian Iddon (VisionTrack Ducati) with Championship leader Tarran Mackenzie (McAMS Yamaha) in third.
The riders were faced with cool and damp conditions and this could be seen in the times which were initially more than 10 seconds off the pace set in the dry but it was Gino Rea (Buildbase Suzuki) who made the early running, his first flying lap of 1’38.394 putting him just ahead of Mossey who’d progressed from Q1 on his first outing on the TAG machine.
Ryan Vickers, another to progress from Q1, soon replaced Rea at the top of the leaderboard with the early top five reading Vickers, Rea, Mossey, Andrew Irwin and Rory Skinner.
Skinner jumped to the number one spot briefly before the Ducati pairing of Iddon and Josh Brookes relegated him to third and Irwin then split the two PBM team-mates. Jason O’Halloran was another rider on the move and slotted into fourth with Vickers and Skinner now fifth and sixth.
Championship leader Mackenzie then went quickest but only briefly and after five minutes of the session, the mid-way point, the order was Irwin, with a 1’36.316, O’Halloran, Vickers, Mackenzie, Iddon and Brookes.
Brookes then moved up two places to fourth before Mackenzie responded to push him back to fifth but Tommy Bridewell was down in 15th and with work to do in the final couple of minutes on the Oxford Products Racing Ducati.
The big surprise came with a minute to go when Mossey, taking full advantage of the track time, went fastest but his glory looked to be short-lived as Mackenzie pushed him back to second.
However, the Honda man wasn’t done and a 1’35.749 put him almost three-tenths of a second quicker than his Yamaha rival but it wasn’t Mackenzie who ended up second and, instead, it was Iddon after a late lap saw him jump up from 11th to second.
Mackenzie stayed on the front row in third with Irwin taking fourth despite a near high-side at Paddock Hill, whilst Bridewell did manage to move up the order and took a solid fifth.
Skinner finished in an eventual sixth ahead of Vickers, Glenn Irwin, Danny Buchan and Rea but O’Halloran, second in the championship, slipped back to 11th. That was one place ahead of outgoing champion Brookes with Peter Hickman, still in with a mathematical chance of the title, in 14th.
