Jason O’Halloran maintained his 100 per cent start to the 2021 Bennetts British Superbike Championship on Sunday afternoon when the McAMS Yamaha rider took his second victory of the weekend, a last lap, last corner move denying the VisionTrack Ducati of Christian Iddon.
Peter Hickman gave the FHO Racing BMW team their first BSB podium in third.
O’Halloran made the most of his pole position to lead into Old Hall but it was Iddon who completed the first lap in the lead with Hickman, O’Halloran, Tarran Mackenzie (McAMS Yamaha) and Ryan Vickers (RAF Regular & Reserve Kawasaki) in hot pursuit. Honda’s Ryo Mizuno was out though having crashed at Island.
Second time around and the front three remained the same but Vickers was going great guns having moved up to fourth with Bridewell following him past Mackenzie. Bridewell, along with Glenn Irwin (Honda Racing) and FS-3 Racing team-mates Lee Jackson and Rory Skinner had all opted for the hard rear tyre with the rest of the field going with SCX softer option.
Iddon continued to lead the way as Hickman and O’Halloran swapped second and third on more than one occasion and by lap four the leading trio had opened up a second lead over Vickers.
Drama then followed on lap five as Bridewell touched Mackenzie on the approach to Hizzy’s and the chain detached itself from the Ducati putting him out of the race. Mackenzie had to go straight on and dropped back to 13th as a consequence.
Lap six and Iddon had opened up a 0.6s advantage over O’Halloran who was back in second with Hickman, who struggled with arm pump in Saturday’s race, running in third ahead of Vickers, Irwin and the Synetiq BMW of Danny Buchan. Josh Brookes was beginning to make progress from his 12th place starting position and was up to eighth.
Irwin moved ahead of Vickers at Lodge on lap seven with Brookes taking over seventh at the expense of Skinner who then lost another position to Jackson.
Back at the front and Iddon, O’Halloran and Hickman were split by just over half a second at half race distance with Irwin now some four seconds adrift in fourth as he continued to battle with Buchan and Vickers, the latter two having swapped positions. Brookes and Bradley Ray (Rich Energy OMG Racing BMW) had now tagged themselves onto the back of the group battling for fourth.
By lap 11, Iddon and O’Halloran had opened up a second gap over Hickman but the battle for fourth now included seven riders and Buchan had moved to the front of the group with Irwin now fifth and Brookes sixth. A lap later and Brookes pushed Irwin back to sixth with Mackenzie regrouping in tenth.
As the race entered its final third, it was a clear two-horse race between Iddon and O’Halloran with the latter sticking to the rear wheel of his Ducati rival and seemingly just waiting for his moment to pounce. Buchan and Brookes were now disputing fourth as Ray moved up to sixth on lap 14.
Going into the final lap, Iddon was still controlling the race with the gap to O’Halloran consistently around two tenths of a second but the Australian wasn’t to be denied and he slid up the inside at Lodge to take his second win of the weekend with Iddon again in second, his fifth on the trot at Oulton, just 0.103s adrift.
Hickman took a good third with Buchan holding off a charging Ray for fifth with Mackenzie fighting back to take sixth on the final lap ahead of Brookes, Jackson, Irwin and the second Rich Energy OMG Racing BMW of Kyle Ryde.
Vickers slipped back to 11th with Skinner, the Buildbase Suzuki pairing of Gino Rea and Danny Kent and Josh Owens (CDH Racing Kawasaki) completing the points scorers.
