Tommy Bridewell claimed the first pole position of the 2023 Bennetts British Superbike Championship [BSB] season at Silverstone on Saturday afternoon, the BeerMonster Ducati rider coming out on top by just 0.028s.

The 2021 BSB runner-up heads up a front-row alongside Kyle Ryde (LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha) in second, with two-time BSB champion Josh Brookes took third on the FHO Racing BMW.

The first 12 minutes for Q1 saw Ryan Vickers, Josh Owens, Dean Harrison, Lee Jackson, Storm Stacey and Charlie Nesbitt all progress, the last-named after Hector Barbera had his time deleted for exceeding track limits, but then it was down to Q2 to determine the gird for the opening race.

Again held over 12 minutes it was Leon Haslam (ROKiT BMW) who made the initial running with a time of 53.624s on his first flying lap but that was quickly upstaged by the BeerMonster Ducati duo of Bridewell and Glenn Irwin who both posted a 53.4s lap.

However, they had to give best to a flying Ryde who, as expected given his practice form, went to the top of the timesheets with a lap of 53.069s which gave him an advantage of almost four tenths of a second.

Soon after, Jason O’ Halloran (McAMS Yamaha) moved up to second with Danny Buchan (Synetiq BMW) slotting into fourth, sandwiching himself between the two Ducatis, but Irwin soon responded and a lap of 53.340s enabled him to go back into second, closing the gap to Ryde to 0.271s in the process.

However, the red flag came out just before the halfway point after Storm Stacey’s Starline Racing Kawasaki expired coming through Woodcote.

When the session resumed, the running order was Ryde, Glenn Irwin, O’Halloran, Brookes, Bridewell and Buchan, but with just under seven minutes remaining, there was still plenty of time for that to change.

Haslam was the first mover as he went from 12^th to eighth, but he was upstaged by Peter Hickman who jumped up to sixth but at the top of the leaderboard, Bridewell demoted Ryde to second with a lap of 52.931s almost two tenths inside the lap record. Meanwhile, Danny Kent was going great guns in sixth.

Next time around and Brookes pushed Ryde down another spot to third with Kennedy taking over sixth, but Ryde was the next rider into the 52’s and he reclaimed second, just 0.028s adrift of Bridewell.

However, the Yamaha rider’s session ended as he went down at Brooklands, but he was still able to hold onto second behind Bridewell and ahead of Brookes. O’Halloran held onto fourth ahead of Glenn Irwin and Buchan with the impressive Kennedy and Kent in seventh and eighth as Christian Iddon (Oxford Products Racing Ducati) and Haslam completed the top ten.

2023 BSB Silverstone | Round 1 | Qualifying Results