McAMS Yamaha’s Tarran Mackenzie claimed the final Bennetts British Superbike clash of the weekend at Donington Park, getting the verdict by 1.2s from Glenn Irwin (Honda Racing) with third for Josh Brookes (VisionTrack Ducati), stretching his lead to 16 points with three races remaining.
It was Brookes who grabbed the advantage on the opening lap but Ryan Vickers (RAF Regular & Reserve Kawasaki) was again out of luck as he touched another rider and went down at Redgate, fortunately without injury.
Brookes led Tommy Bridewell, Jason O’Halloran, Irwin, Mackenzie and Christian Iddon at the end of the first lap with the latter two swapping positions on lap three as less than a second covered the first four riders.
Lap four saw Brookes eke out a small gap and Irwin move ahead of O’Halloran (McAMS Yamaha) whilst Iddon and Mackenzie were continuing to exchange places as Gino Rea (Buildbase Suzuki) clung on to their back wheel.
Two laps later, Irwin dived up the inside of Bridewell on the way into the Foggy Esses to claim second but the move saw Brookes’ lead go up to 0.8s as he looked to increase his Championship lead ahead of the final round.
Bridewell didn’t last much longer though and pulled in to retire the Oxford Products Racing Ducati at the end of lap seven, a lap that also saw Hector Barbera disappear from the fray as he crashed the Rich Energy OMG Racing BMW.
Back at the front and at half race distance the front three of Brookes, Irwin and Mackenzie had broken away from Iddon, O’Halloran and Rea and lap nine saw O’Halloran and Iddon touch on the approach to McLeans, the end result being a damaged lever guard on the Yamaha as he dropped back to eighth.
Irwin was in determined mood after his earlier crash and dived up the inside of Brookes at Schwantz on lap ten and just a few corners later Mackenzie followed him with a move up the inside of the Australian at the Melbourne Hairpin.
The youngster wasn’t done there either and took the lead from Irwin on the twelfth lap after getting better drive out of Coppice but team-mate O’Halloran’s title aspirations were being hit further as he was now down in tenth. Brookes was now more than a second adrift in third.
Mackenzie held a lead of three-quarters of a second going into the final lap and he came home for his second win of the season with Irwin re-igniting his Championship hopes in second although third for Brookes saw his lead go up to 16 points.
Iddon managed to hold off Rea, Lee Jackson and Andrew Irwin to remain in second in the title standings as O’Halloran recovered to take eighth ahead of Luke Mossey and Joe Francis.
