Reigning MCE British Superbike Champion Shane Byrne feels like his second-race retirement at Cadwell Park yesterday has handed ten podium points to the competition after he also suffered a non-finish at Thruxton two weeks ago.
The Be Wiser Ducati man saw his championship lead cut to ten points by Leon Haslam - who also didn’t complete the second outing - but Byrne is more interested in what happens after the Silverstone cut-off as he is 99 per cent assured a Showdown spot.
“I guess it would be really, really easy to be down and negative and angry and whatever else because I feel like the last two rounds we’ve potentially given away 10 podium points,” said Byrne.
“I sat really, really pretty in there in third for a long time and then Jake crashed. Because I’d been so careful I just thought right, ok, let’s go. I got a nice early move on Lee Bob. I’m chuffed for him and that’s probably the ride of his life he’s just done there. He stopped to give me a lift on the way back and I said mate go and enjoy your lap you’ve just finished on the podium, don’t worry about me.
“But got to the lead and set about hitting all my markers and dropped back down in the 26s and thought, right this is it, five laps to go or whatever it was. Finally, five podium points. And then I come through the Gooseneck and the bike just jumped out of gear and wouldn’t select gears.
“I put my hand up and pulled to the side of the track. I couldn’t understand it at first because the chain was on and everything was on, but the bike was just sitting there spinning with the clutch out but the wheel wasn’t turning. So, I knew it was a retirement and a massive shame.
“I’m gutted we’ve got three weeks off now to be honest. I’d like to go to Silverstone tomorrow and put it all right and try and actually score some wins for a change. But our time will come, we had a good run just recently. We just need to get back to that kind of form. You’ve got to take the rough with the smooth and the bad days make the good ones better so I think we should have some good ones coming.”
