Yamaha's Jason O’Halloran claimed his ninth Bennetts British Superbike Championship victory of the season at Cadwell Park when he took full advantage of a slide for long time race leader Peter Hickman on the final lap of Sunday’s second race.
The McAMS rider dived up the inside of the FHO Racing BMW at Charlie’s and held on for the win with Tommy Bridewell again completing the podium in third on the Oxford Products Racing Ducati.
O’Halloran powered off the line but Glenn Irwin (Honda Racing) soon edged ahead and led the field round at the end of the opening lap with Hickman in third from Bridewell, who immediately fought back from a poor start, Josh Brookes, Lee Jackson and an impressive Storm Stacey.
Indeed, the latter was the fastest man on track second time around where the order remained the same with just a second covering the top five.
Stacey moved into fifth on lap three after Jackson made a slight mistake at the hairpin and Hickman moved into second at the same time, relegating O’Halloran to third.
A lap later and Stacey dropped back to eighth but there was action further up the road too with Jackson getting by Brookes for fifth and, crucially, Hickman taking the lead at Mansfield from Irwin. O’Halloran followed suit a few corners later.
Irwin appeared to be struggling and lost another place, to Bridewell, on lap six and the front three from the previous two races were again the leading three riders, quickly opening up a gap over the pack squabbling for fourth.
At one third race distance, the gap was more than a second but Brookes grabbed fourth on lap seven after getting by both Irwin and Jackson on the brakes into Park Corner.
Back at the front and Hickman, O’Halloran and Bridewell were split by just three quarters of a second at half race distance with Brookes and Jackson having broken away from the group behind as they attempted to close the gap to the leaders.
By lap 12, Hickman was enjoying a half second lead over O’Halloran with Bridewell a further six tenths of a second back in third and with all the leading riders lapping at a similar pace, the status quo remained.
With three laps to go, Hickman led O’Halloran by 0.408s with Bridewell seemingly powerless to do anything about them in third and Jackson finally got by Brookes on the run towards the Mountain after the Australian got into the chicane a bit deep.
Hickman looked in control but at the beginning of the last lap he had a slide on the exit of Coppice and O’Halloran slipped up the inside at Charlie’s, going on to take victory by just 0.203s.
Bridewell was two seconds further back in third with Jackson, a rejuvenated Brookes and Irwin in fourth to sixth. Christian Iddon, Bradley Ray, Andrew Irwin and Ryan Vickers completed the top ten.
Stacey’s good ride came to an unfortunate end at the beginning of lap 14 when Rory Skinner slid up the inside at Coppice and forced him onto the grass before he crashed out on the wet ground.
