Danny Buchan set the early pace for this weekend’s Bennetts British Superbike Championship round at Knockhill with the Synetiq BMW rider topping Saturday morning’s opening practice session.
He set a lap of 47.432s around the 1.26-mile venue which put him a healthy 0.199s clear of the VisionTrack Ducati of Christian Iddon with current series leader Jason O’Halloran (McAMS Yamaha) in third.
It was Glenn Irwin who set the early pace, the Honda Racing rider lapping at 48.281s but the 40-minute session was only five minutes old when it was red flagged after Joey Thompson was shown the black and orange flag due to smoke coming out of the NP Motorcycles BMW.
Re-started over 30 minutes, Buchan soon moved to the top of the pile with a lap of 48.070s and the similarly mounted Peter Hickman (FHO Racing) also moved ahead of Irwin. The latter was again without team-mate Xavi Fores after the medical team ruled him of the action, legacy of the scaphoid injury sustained at Oulton Park.
Buchan was the first to dip into the 47’s after lapping at 47.951s and he was soon followed by Irwin, Bradley Ray (Rich Energy OMG Racing BMW), Tarran Mackenzie (McAMS Yamaha) and Hickman, the quintet separated by just 0.090s with twenty minutes of the session still to go. Like Oulton, reigning champion Josh Brookes (VisionTrack Ducati) was again hovering just outside the top ten.
With 12 minutes remaining, O’Halloran moved to the top of the leaderboard with a lap of 47.673s giving him a 0.169s advantage over Buchan and a few minutes later, the other significant change on the leaderboard came as Ryan Vickers moved up to eighth on the RAF Regular & Reserve Kawasaki.
However, that was immediately upstaged by Iddon who jumped up from tenth quickest to first after lapping at 47.631s, four hundredths quicker than O’Halloran’s earlier time.
Buchan was pushed back to third but a lap of 47.700s edged him closer to the leading two riders and with just two minutes to go he went quickest once more with his lap of 47.432s inside Leon Haslam’s lap record of 47.462s.
That saw him ultimately hold onto the top spot with Iddon, O’Halloran, Hickman, Ray, Irwin and Mackenzie filling the top seven positions and the only riders to lap under 48 seconds.
Local ace Rory Skinner (FS-3 Racing Kawasaki), Vickers and Danny Kent (Buildbase Suzuki) rounded out the top ten with Brookes only managing 14th. Tommy Bridewell (Oxford Products Ducati) was also down the order in 16th.
Ray was a late faller at Duffus Dip with team-mate Kyle Ryde following him into the the gravel trap just a few seconds later at the following corner, McIntyre’s.
