Despite taking his ninth podium of the season, and finishing all three races inside the top five, Kyle Ryde admitted round nine of the British Superbike Championship at Oulton Park was a bit of a struggle.
The LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha rider matched his third place finish from earlier in the season and finishes of 5-3-5 slightly improved upon 7-5-3 from May’s round but he ultimately lost ground to the BeerMonster Ducati duo of Glenn Irwin and Tommy Bridewell with the deficit to leader Irwin now 60.5 points with two rounds to go.
“To be honest, every race this weekend felt like a little bit of a struggle for me as I just couldn’t quite get the feeling I wanted from the bike in the latter 50% of the races,” he said.
“We tried a few things with the bike that didn’t quite work, and we just went the wrong way a little bit, but we’ve got some really good data that’ll help us next season.”
“I frightened myself a little bit a few times as we had a few moments on the bike, and the very last thing I wanted to do was throw it away and gift the Ducatis 25 points, but we got a podium and I’m happy with that.”
Ryde now heads to his local round at Donington Park, venue of a victory last year and a double earlier this year – only denied a hat-trick when he slipped off in the second race – and, understandably, hopes are high.
“Going into Donington I’m feeling really confident, as we have great data for there and very nearly came away with 3 wins the last time we were there.”
