Glenn Irwin’s stranglehold at the top of the British Superbike Championship leaderboard continued in the final practice session at Oulton Park on Saturday morning with his lap of 1’34.186 the fastest lap of the weekend.

That put the BeerMonster Ducati rider 0.421s quicker than Leon Haslam (ROKiT BMW Motorrad Team) with team-mate Tommy Bridewell ending the 20-minute session in third.

Bridewell, Kyle Ryde (LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha) and Irwin were immediately into the low 1’35’s on their first flying lap, which was a second quicker than anyone else, but Josh Brookes (FHO Racing BMW) and Lee Jackson (Cheshire Mouldings Kawasaki) joined them second time around, the latter knocking Bridewell off the top spot by 0.009s.

He was soon pushed back down to second by Haslam though, the BMW rider the first to post a 1’34 lap in the session at 1’34.769. That put him a quarter of a second clear of Jackson.

With a third of a session gone, the running order was Haslam, Jackson, Bridewell, Ryde, Jason O’Halloran (McAMS Yamaha) and Irwin, with less than a half a second between them, and that gap soon covered seven riders with Ryan Vickers slotting into fifth on the second OMG machine.

Brookes, Jack Kennedy (Mar-Train Racing Yamaha) and Luke Stapleford (McAMS Yamaha) completed the early top ten.

Jackson was the next rider to dip into the 1’34’s, at 1’34.991, which consolidated his second place, but it didn’t last long with firstly Vickers and then O’Halloran pushing him down the order. O’Halloran’s lap of 1’34.790 cut the gap to Haslam to 0.183s.

Both Haslam and Bridewell upped their pace to a 1’34.607 and 1’34.651 respectively but with five minutes to go, Irwin jumped into the number one spot with a lap of 1’34.242, which was 0.365s quicker than anyone else and just a fraction outside his best lap from the previous day.

Further back, Brookes also improved with his lap of 1’34.750 half a second quicker than what he’d managed on Friday.

In the dying seconds, Irwin went quicker again at 1’34.186 which put him four tenths of a second ahead of Haslam and they were followed by Bridewell, O’Halloran, Brookes and Ryde with Vickers, Peter Hickman (FHO Racing BMW), one time pace setter Jackson and Luke Mossey (Tactix by Lloyd & Jones BMW) completing the top ten.