Glenn Irwin again came out on top in the second Bennetts British Superbike Championship of the weekend at Silverstone on Sunday when the Honda Racing rider got the better of the Rich Energy OMG Racing Yamaha of Kyle Ryde once more with Rory Skinner (FS-3 Racing Kawasaki) taking third.
It could have been all so different though as Ryde’s teammate, Bradley Ray crashed out with just seven laps to go after leading from the start.
He took the holeshot off the line into Copse and he led Ryde, Skinner and Irwin at the end of lap one but Luke Mossey, Storm Stacey and Dan Jones were all out after going down at Becketts.
Ray and Ryde continued to lead the way third time around with Skinner maintaining third ahead of Irwin but there was more drama a lap later as Tom Sykes highsided at Luffield taking Chrissy Rouse down with him and that brought out the safety car for a period of three laps.
Andrew Irwin (Synetiq BMW) immediately made a move on the eighth lap and jumped up to third after overhauling no less than three riders in quick succession, including brother Glenn, but then ran wide at Brooklands and dropped back to fourth behind Skinner.
With a new lap record, 53.102s, Ray opened up a lead of half a second by lap ten, one-thirds race distance, with Ryde a similar distance ahead of Skinner. Glenn Irwin was now up to fourth at the expense of brother Andrew with Jason O’Halloran (McAMS Yamaha) still in sixth. Meanwhile, another crash, this time at Copse, saw Dean Harrison and Bjorn Estment out of the action.
The front three were separated by three quarters of a second by lap 13, with Glenn Irwin now on his own in fourth and a similar gap back whilst O’Halloran was now up to fifth having overhauled Andrew Irwin. Lee Jackson and Tommy Bridewell were right with them as the four riders disputed fifth. Leon Haslam and Josh Brookes, meanwhile, were back in 11th and 13th respectively.
By half race distance, the front four, covered by a second, were almost two seconds clear of the chasing pack, but the status quo remained with Ray consistently holding onto a half second lead from Ryde, Skinner and Glenn Irwin. Lap 17 though saw the latter move up to third through Maggots.
As the race entered its final third, Skinner in fourth was beginning to lose a bit of ground with Irwin pressurising Ryde for second and, indeed, the Ulsterman moved ahead at Brooklands on the 20th lap. O’Halloran was still in fifth with Jackson now up to sixth.
Ray was continuing to control proceedings from the front, just as Irwin had done the day before but it all came to an end on lap 23 when he ran slightly wide at Luffield and crashed out.
That handed the lead to Irwin but there was still less than a second covering the top three with six laps to go although the Honda man was able to keep Ryde at arms length once more. Further back, Jackson and Andrew Irwin relegated O’Halloran to sixth with four laps to go.
Back at the front there was little to choose between Irwin and Ryde going into the final lap and they almost touched at Luffield as Irwin ran wide slightly and cut back to stop the Yamaha rider slipping up the inside but he duly made it two from two with just 0.079s between them at the chequered flag.
Skinner continued his good start to the season with third with teammate Jackson taking fourth ahead of Andrew Irwin and O’Halloran. Peter Hickman came through strongly for seventh ahead of Tommy Bridewell, Danny Buchan and Christian Iddon. Brookes took 11th with Haslam in 15th.
