Glenn Irwin took a dominant victory in the British Superbike Championship (BSB) Sprint race at Knockhill, the BeerMonster Ducati rider taking his third win of the season and with it the series lead.

The Ulsterman put in a composed performance to come home ahead of Kyle Ryde (LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha) in second and Jason O’Halloran (McAMS Yamaha) in third.

With Tommy Bridewell finishing fourth, pole sitter Irwin nips back ahead of his team-mate to hold a slender three point lead with Sunday's two races to come.

Held over 20 laps of the 1.269-mile venue, O’Halloran and Irwin fought for the lead at the first corner with the former coming out on top and he led Irwin, Ryde, Leon Haslam (ROKiT BMW Motorrad), Ryan Vickers on the second OMG machine and Storm Stacey (Starline Racing Kawasaki) over the line at the end of the opening lap.

Irwin took over at the front next time around and Ryde quickly followed him by O’Halloran, but Vickers had a major moment on the brakes coming into the hairpin and ran wide, dropping from sixth to tenth as a result.

The lead was half a second as they started the fifth lap with the front three of Irwin, Ryde and O’Halloran having a near second gap over Haslam, Stacey and a charging Bridewell. Josh Brookes (FHO Racing BMW) was now seventh, one place ahead of Charlie Nesbitt (MasterMac Honda by Hawk Racing).

Bridewell moved up to fifth, at the expense of Stacey on the seventh lap, but the leading three of Irwin, Ryde and O’Halloran were continuing to pull away from the rest of the field.

Irwin’s lead was just under half a second with O’Halloran a further quarter second back and Bridewell’s forward momentum continued as he took Haslam for fourth on lap eight.

A lap later, Nesbitt crashed out whilst at the front Irwin continued to maintain his half second advantage over Ryde with O’Halloran a similar distance back in third, neither of the latter two close enough to attempt a pass.

Bridewell, meanwhile, had opened a near second advantage over the six-rider battle for fifth which continued to be led by Haslam.

Irwin continued to control proceedings from the front and with four laps to go, he’d stretched his lead to 0.896s and with his hopes of a win seemingly gone, Ryde focused more at keeping O’Halloran at bay.

Bridewell was now well secure in fourth as Haslam now led Christian Iddon (Oxford Products Ducati) and Vickers in the battle for fifth.

There was to be no change at the head of the field with Irwin crossing the line 0.606s ahead of Ryde with O’Halloran and Bridewell in third and fourth respectively and it was Iddon who prevailed in the battle for fifth after a late move on Haslam.

Vickers, Stacey, Brookes and Lee Jackson (Cheshire Mouldings Kawasaki) completed the top ten.

BSB Knockhill | RACE 1 Results