PBM Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne clinched a late victory from rival, Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes in the final MCE British Superbike race at Oulton Park. On the penultimate lap he got the better of the Australian to bag his second win of the weekend.
Brookes did lead for the majority of the race and on his third lap set a new record, of a 1’34.483. Tyco BMW’s Tommy Bridewell held on to take third, and the final step on the rostrum, but today the Showdown was the priority.
So after the triple-header the top six riders have been confirmed, and they are; Brookes, Byrne, Ellison, Tyco BMW team-mate’s Tommy Bridewell and Michael Laverty, and Linfoot.
The Honda Racing man finished just behind JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s James Ellison in sixth, and that was enough for him to secure the final spot in the Showdown. Laverty had already claimed his place inside the top six, and ended race-three in twelfth.
PBM Kawasaki’s Stuart Easton was in contention before the weekend of remaining inside the Showdown, but he was already nursing an injury coming into the Cheshire round and a crash in race-once meant he was not fit enough to take part in the final two races today. He subsequently slipped down to seventh in the standings, just three points shy of a Showdown spot.
Initially it was Brookes who got the hole-shot followed closely by Byrne and a bruised and battered Bridewell. The Tyco BMW rider high-sided in race-two but still managed to haul himself over the S1000RR to take part today.
But the safety car did come out on lap seven after Winfield crashed at Old Hall and the airbags on the side of the track were being repaired. But two rotations later the safety car went back in and Byrne fired a warning shot to Brookes and revved up the engine to claw his way to the front, but then he went wide allowing Brookes to regain the lead, with Bridewell and Buchan in podium contention.
Byrne was then left with a fight on his hands and was back in fifth, but propelled through the pack to go into third behind Buchan and Linfoot on lap thirteen of eighteen. Then a lap later Byrne overtook Bridewell at Lodge to retake second and had Brookes as his next target.
On the penultimate rotation Byrne overtook Brookes at the Avenue to go into the lead for the first time, and the Bringelly man was unable to get past to do the double. At the flag, Be Wiser Kawasaki’s Danny Buchan just missed out on his third podium of the day to bag fourth.
“I was watching Josh and wanted to make a move after the Safety car, but Josh left it quite late to go and I had a good run on him so I went for a lunge on him. I can’t tell you what I thought as I went straight on and unfortunately everyone was buzzing passed me! I got my head down and put some harsh moves on the others as I knew I had no time to waste to get back to Josh. It was now or never so I went for the move and led the rest of the lap and fortunately held him off," said Byrne, at the track.
“We will regroup again after this weekend so we are ready for the Showdown at Assen. We need to do everything we can do be in the position to go out and attack in the last three rounds as you can’t do anything else now. The circuits coming up should be good for the PBM Kawasaki so we need to make our weaknesses as small as possible and our strengths as big as possible."
Elsewhere Cooper, Iddon and Buildbase BMW’s Ryuichi Kiyonari ended the final outing in seventh, eighth and ninth respectively. Mainwaring completed the top ten.
There were some retirements, that included Moto Rapido Ducati’s John Hopkins who only completed one lap, and RAF Reserves BMW’s Peter Hickman never made it out of the garage, as he had a technical problem.
