Kyle Ryde repeated his first British Superbike Championship victory at Donington Park by taking the final race of the weekend with another lights to flag win on the LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha over Tommy Bridewell (BeerMonster Ducati).

Bridewell’s runner-up position saw him reclaim the championship lead with team-mate and third-placed Glenn Irwin moving back up to second after Josh Brookes (FHO Racing BMW) could only manage 13^th in the final 20-lap encounter.

Ryde led team-mate Ryan Vickers into Redgate with pole man Bridewell slotting into third and that was the order as they crossed the line at the end of the opening lap, Danny Kent running in a strong fourth on the Lovell Kent Racing Honda ahead of Jason O’Halloran (McAMS Yamaha) and Leon Haslam (ROKiT BMW Motorrad). Glenn Irwin was up to seventh with Brookes dropping from sixth on the grid to tenth, but Max Cook was out having fallen at Goddards from the Cheshire Mouldings Kawasaki.

Bridewell got by Vickers at Redgate next time around with Haslam doing the same to O’Halloran but Kent dropped behind both of them on the third lap around the 2.5-mile GP circuit. There was an incident further back at Goddards though with Andrew Irwin (Honda Racing) and Storm Stacey (Starline Racing Kawasaki) sliding out of contention, which made it zero points from the weekend for the Honda rider.

Haslam moved up to third at Redgate at the start of lap five with Glenn Irwin now running in sixth, just under two seconds covering the leading six riders. Irwin moved up another place a lap later too as he overhauled O’Halloran. Championship leader Brookes, meanwhile, had slipped back to 13^th.

Bridewell was beginning to exert considerable pressure on Ryde at the head of the field with just three tenths of a second between them but the front seven – which now consisted of Ryde, Bridewell, Haslam, Vickers, Glenn Irwin, Kent and Christian Iddon (Oxford Products Ducati) – were still only separated by two seconds.

Irwin was the fastest man on track and the first rider to dip into the 1’27’s but he remained in fifth and there was disappointment further back for Kent as he crashed out of sixth at the Melbourne Hairpin. Lap nine saw Irwin eventually find a way by Vickers to move up to fourth.

By lap ten, half race distance, Ryde continued to lead from the front from Bridewell, Haslam, Irwin, Vickers and Iddon, who was having one of his best rides of the season, but second race winner O’Halloran was now 1.5s adrift in sixth. Brookes was now running in 11^th.

The front six were running very much nose to tail but with little change in the order although that changed on lap 13 when Iddon slipped up the inside of Vickers at the Melbourne Hairpin on lap 13. And Irwin did the same to Haslam a corner later when the BMW man ran wide at Goddards.

With five laps to go, Ryde’s lead over Bridewell stood at half a second and the duo had broken away from the chasing pack of five riders, Irwin in third now 1.8s in arrears. He’d also edged away from the group behind and although O’Halloran had fought his way back to the pack, the four riders – Vickers, Iddon, O’Halloran and Haslam – were now disputing fourth. Lee Jackson was also closing in on the Cheshire Mouldings Kawasaki.

The race was a straight fight between Ryde and Bridewell but Ryde had enough in the tank and edged away in the closing stages to win by 1.3s with Irwin completing the podium in third. Vickers backed up his earlier podium with a strong fourth and it was Iddon who came through for fifth ahead of Jackson and O’Halloran.

Haslam faded to eighth with Charlie Nesbitt (MasterMac Honda by Hawk Racing) and Danny Buchan (Synetiq BMW) completing the top ten, but Brookes lost his championship lead with a lowly 13^th

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