Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne was unable to match the pace of his main rival Buildbase BMW’s Ryuichi Kiyonari but still finds himself seated on the front row. The triple-champion clocked a 2'10.940 which was good enough for second on the starting grid during the MCE British Superbike qualifying session.

The aim was simple for Byrne, and that was to get on the front row – and he did just that. Byrne admitted that he took a gamble with his tyre choices. Most of the riders went into Q3 on slicks, but Byrne opted for an intermediate front and slick rear, on a drying track. But the gamble did pay off as he is still on the front row, for race one on Sunday.

“For myself and for Kiyo it is a different ball game. I used wets in Q1 and I used an intermediate front and a wet in Q2 and I didn’t want to gamble in Q3 and so I went on the side of caution and I went for the intermediate front and slick rear - and I put in a semi decent lap,” said Byrne, at the track.

“We always aim for a front row start so it should be a good fight between myself and Kiyo. I am feeling pretty good but we could have done with cracking things a bit earlier but in a perfect world we would have liked a dry third practice this morning. Hopefully it will be dry tomorrow and we can run with Kiyo throughout the race.”

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