McAMS Yamaha’s Tarran Mackenzie put in an heroic ride to win Sunday’s opening Bennetts British Superbike Championship race at Silverstone, despite being decalared unfit to race on Saturday evening after the dramatic race one collision.
With his left hand injury reassessed on Sunday morning, Mackenzie was back in action, getting the better of teammate Jason O’Halloran and overhauling long time race leader Josh Brookes on the final lap, with the VisionTrack Ducati rider having to settle for third.
With good, dry conditions all round the 1.64-mile National circuit, pole man Gino Rea got the jump off the line to lead into Copse and it was the Buildbase Suzuki that led the field round at the end of lap closely followed by Mackenzie, Brookes, O’Halloran, Christian Iddon on the second VisionTrack Ducati and Bradley Ray (Rich Energy OMG Racing BMW).
Brookes scythed his way to the front on the second lap and team-mate Iddon made it a PBM one-two next time around with Ray up to third from Mackenzie, Rea and Tommy Bridewell (Oxford Products Racing Ducati).
Iddon then ran wide at Becketts which allowed Ray through into second and the leading two riders were doing their Showdown hopes a world of good, particularly with Danny Buchan and Lee Jackson in 14th and 15th respectively. Saturday’s race winner Irwin was also outside the top ten in 12th.
By lap seven, the running order was Brookes, Ray, Iddon, Rea, Bridewell and Mackenzie with the six riders covered by just a second. O’Halloran was in seventh and under pressure from Andrew Irwin.
Iddon again ran wide into Brooklands on lap ten and that allowed Brookes and Ray to suddenly have a second gap over the rest of the field, Bridewell now up to fourth and looking to extend his run of podium finishes. Indeed, he moved up to third on lap 11.
Two laps later, Iddon had a huge moment at Becketts and was fortunate not to crash as he dropped down to seventh as a result but team-mate Brookes was having no such issues and at half race distance he led Ray by 0.235s with Bridewell and Rea closing in as the injured Mackenzie and O’Halloran ran in fifth and sixth.
As the race entered its second half, the race looked to be between the leading four riders who were now split by just half a second but Brookes continued to keep everyone at bay and eked out an advantage of 0.463s by the end of lap 18.
A lap later, Bridewell moved into second at the expense of Ray and now had more than half a second to make up to Brookes who was controlling proceedings just like the Brookes of old.
The Australian had a lead of 0.6s as he started his 23rd of 30 laps and although Bridewell was still in second and ahead of Ray, Mackenzie was now up to fourth as Rea tried to cling on.
Ray regained second at the start of lap 24 and the top six were beginning to close back up, just 1.3s covering them with five laps to go by which time Mackenzie had taken over the final podium position from Bridewell.
The Yamaha rider then moved into second at Copse although Brookes still had a half second lead with four laps to go but that all but disappeared next time around and the reigning champion now had his hands full trying to keep Mackenzie and Ray at bay.
He couldn’t do it though and Mackenzie took the lead going into Copse on the final lap with O’Halloran in third and the latter took second at Brooklands to give the McAMS team another 1-2.
Brookes had to settle for third, his first podium finish of the season, with Ray in fourth, the quartet separated by just 0.456s. Bridewell and Rea slipped back to fifth and sixth with Iddon, Vickers, Skinner and Hickman rounding out the top ten.
Buchan, Glenn Irwin and Jackson could only manage 12th, 13th and 14th.
