Despite the second round of the Showdown being another challenging affair for Jason O’Halloran, the McAMS Yamaha rider is still very much in contention for this year’s Bennetts British Superbike Championship.
The Australian dominated the eight rounds that preceded the Showdown but since then has seen his lead wiped out and now sits in second overall. But despite only managing a best finish of fifth at Donington Park at the weekend, he’s still only 10 points behind teammate Tarran Mackenzie with 75 on offer at the final round at Brands Hatch, a circuit where he won earlier in the year.
Fifth in Saturday’s treacherous conditions proved to be his result with poor grid positions severely hindering him on Sunday and he admitted the weekend was a struggle with just finishing a relief.
“It’s been a really difficult weekend for us. On Saturday, conditions were so tough that my mentality before the race was to just finish the race; I wasn’t bothered about where I finished I just wanted to stay on!
“Finishing fifth was actually great as I thought I was 12th or something so I was really surprised when the team told me that. It would have been very easy to end up on your backside in that race so they were some really important points as every point matters at the minute.”
He wasn’t able to build on that on Sunday though, either in the dry or wet, with ninth in the former and eighth in the latter, finding himself mired in the midfield on both occasions.
“Sunday’s first race was tough, I got caught up in a battle with both the Irwins, Bradley Ray and a few others and we were just smashing into each other at every corner and unfortunately we couldn’t get away from each other which made it really difficult.
“In the final race, all I wanted to do was get to the finish line, I struggled with a bit of entry grip from the rear, it was really cold and really slippery so I was just happy to make the flag. There are 10 points in it now, we’ve got a week off which I’m looking forward to and then it’s all to play for at Brands.”
