Be Wiser Ducati’s Shane Byrne set the fastest time of the weekend so far, with a 1’34.685 during the second MCE British Superbike free practice session at Oulton Park, and was only 0.2 seconds shy off his own outright lap record at the track.
He left it until his final lap to clock his best time, and in doing so pushed JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam down to second on the timing-screens. In FP1, Haslam was the only rider to lap inside the 1.34’s, but that changed as the top six were all sub 1’35’s this afternoon.
An earlier rain shower had passed just in time for FP2 and the riders were able to go out on to a dry track. But with 30 minutes remaining drops of rain started to fall in sector 3, but the wet weather soon passed overhead.
With fifteen minutes of track time available Linfoot went 0.2s faster than Haslam to go top of the sheets, only for his team-mate, O’Halloran to 0.046 seconds quicker to go P1. But then from out of nowhere Briggs Equipment’s Jake Dixon soared into third overall, with an impressive, 1’34.853.
At the flag it ended a Honda Racing fourth and fifth respectively, with both Jason O’Halloran and Dan Linfoot both making it into the top five fastest times. Bridewell, Mossey, Iddon, Hopkins, Cooper, Irwin, Jessopp completed the top fourteen, this afternoon.
Ryuichi Kiyonari was getting himself accustomed to the S1000RR again, after switching from the Bennetts Suzuki team to Smiths Racing.
The triple- champ went P17 on the timing-screens. ePayMe Yamaha’s Broc Parkes is back from Endurance duty and finished inside the top twenty, in what is only his second visit to the Cheshire
track. JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Peter Hickman crashed at Knickerbrook, and was declared OK at the trackside.
