Glenn Irwin won a dramatic opening Bennetts British Superbike race at Silverstone on Saturday afternoon, the Honda Racing rider coming home ahead of Christian Iddon and Tommy Bridewell but only after McAMS Yamaha team-mates Tarran Mackenzie and Jason O’Halloran crashed out on the penultimate lap.
The duo were in first and second at the time but it all went wrong at Brooklands when Mackenzie highsided out of the action leaving championship leader O’Halloran nowhere to go.
Mackenzie edged out O’Halloran on the run to Copse to grab the holeshot but it all changed by the time they’d completed the opening lap of 24 and it was Bridewell (Oxford Products Racing Ducati) now leading from Gino Rea (Buildbase Suzuki), Mackenzie, O’Halloran, Glenn Irwin and Peter Hickman (FHO Racing BMW).
Drama then followed as Hickman clipped the kerb going through Maggots and crashed out at high speed, thankfully without injury, almost taking O’Halloran with him. Just a few corners later, Danny Buchan (Synetiq BMW) and Ryan Vickers were out too, the Essex man trying to move up the inside of the RAF Kawasaki man at Luffield taking both of them down.
Another collision then followed at the beginning of lap three with Keith Farmer and Takumi Takahashi crashing out at Copse and the incidents brought out the safety car for a period of three laps.
Racing resumed on lap six and O’Halloran immediately moved up the inside of Bridewell at Copse, Glenn Irwin taking Rea for third at Becketts shortly afterwards. Brother Andrew also moved ahead of Rea before the completion of the lap.
The restart affected Mackenzie more than anyone and by lap nine he was down to eighth with the running order now O’Halloran, Bridewell, Glenn Irwin, Iddon, Andrew Irwin and Rea with less than two-seconds covering the top nine.
Lee Jackson wasn’t one of them though as he was forced to retire with a technical issue putting the FS-3 Racing Kawasaki rider’s Showdown hopes in jeopardy.
By lap 12, half race distance, O’Halloran was back in front of Bridewell with Mackenzie regrouping in fifth but Andrew Irwin ran wide at Becketts and dropped back to eighth as a consequence.
The top six of O’Halloran, Bridewell, Glenn Irwin, Iddon, Mackenzie and Rea, the fastest man on track, were covered by less than a second with Brookes doing his best to hang on and on lap 15, Irwin took over second from Bridewell.
The latter then lost two further places to Iddon and Mackenzie next time around but O’Halloran continued to lead with a buffer of almost three-tenths of a second over the chasing pack at two thirds race distance.
Lap 17 saw Mackenzie back in the podium positions as he relegated Iddon to fourth and at the same time Josh Brookes lost ground as he ran wide coming into the complex.
Irwin also ran wide at Luffield which gave Mackenzie a glimpse for second but the Honda man held on although it didn’t last long as Mackenzie moved ahead at the end of the lap and set about closing the 0.388s gap to O’Halloran.
He did just that and it was down to 0.210s at the end of the following lap and the two Yamahas were edging away from Irwin, Iddon and Rea who were now disputing the final podium position, Bridewell and Brookes now almost a second further back.
On the penultimate lap, Mackenzie dived up the inside of O’Halloran at the end of the back straight going into Brooklands but then high-sided and crashed out giving his team-mate nowhere to go. Mackenzie slid along the middle of the track with the riders behind doing a great job to avoid him.
The red flag was quickly out and that handed the win to Irwin with Iddon and Bridewell completing the podium positions whilst Brookes moved up to fourth ahead of Bradley Ray and Rea who went wide and lost places trying to avoid the stricken Mackenzie. Kyle Ryde, Xavi Fores and Luke Stapleford rounded out the top ten.
