BeerMonster Ducati duo Glenn Irwin and Tommy Bridewell topped the final British Superbike Championship [BSB] practice session at Snetterton on Saturday morning, with the duo the only two riders to dip below the 1’48 barrier.

Both lapped quicker than what they’d gone the day before with Friday’s pace setter Jason O’Halloran (McAMS Yamaha placing third).

Josh Brookes (FHO Racing BMW) set the early running with a 1’48.716, which put him just 0.013s ahead of Bridewell with Irwin, Kyle Ryde (LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha), O’Halloran and Lee Jackson (Cheshire Mouldings Kawasaki).

Next time around and Danny Kent (Lovell Kent Racing Honda) moved to the top of the leaderboard with a lap of 1’48.624 with local ace Ryan Vickers jumping up to fifth on the second OMG machine but Bridewell bumped them all down a place with his fourth lap of 1’48.194 putting him a healthy 0.430s clear of Kent.

Vickers was the first to respond to the Ducati riders’ rapid lap, closing to within 0.229s, and shortly afterwards O’Halloran moved up to third quickest. However, Bridewell moved the bar further as he became the first rider to lap in the 47’s in the session with a 1’47.912, which was quicker than the time he set the day before.

O’Halloran responded with a 1’48.037 and with eight minutes of the twenty-minute session to go, the running order was Bridewell, O’Halloran, Vickers, Brookes, Jackson and Kent. O’Halloran’s team-mate and Snetterton debutante Tito Rabat was running in a solid ninth.

With four minutes to go, Synetiq’s Danny Buchan moved up to fourth but whilst he was going well, the opposite was true for fellow BMW rider Leon Haslam who found himself down in 20^th, very different to the day before when he ran inside the top three in both sessions. However, with just a couple of minutes to go, his first flying lap saw him leap up the order to sixth.

The final minute saw Irwin go from ninth to first with a lap of 1’47.840, some eight tenths of a second quicker than what he managed on Friday, and that put him 0.072s quicker than team-mate Bridewell. And that was how it remained with Vickers, Haslam and Buchan completing the top six.

Behind them, Brookes, Jackson, Kent and Charlie Nesbitt (MasterMac Honda by Hawk Racing) rounded out the top ten. Ryde ended up 12^th with Rabat one place further back.