Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne took the MCE British Superbike victory for the second time at Snetterton, and eased to the double after Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes crashed out while fighting for the win with the triple champ.
With Brookes out of contention it led the way for GBmoto Kawasaki’s James Ellison and Milwaukee Yamaha’s Tommy Bridewell to snatch the remaining podium spots. Ellison was able to bag his best finish of the year so far, after out-pacing Bridewell for second, to keep his 100 percent podium finish in tact. Bridewell managed to clinch his first rostrum of the year too.
Initially Brookes got the holeshot going into Riches, only for the rider to make a mistake allowing Byrne and Bridewell to go ahead. On the opening lap Bathams Patrick Muff crashed unhurt at Agostini, and Buildbase BMW’s James Westmoreland stopped with a technical problem at Montreal – putting an abrupt end to his race weekend meaning the quiet Hull based rider comes away from the circuit with no points, after an earlier crash in race one.
Three laps later Brookes managed to re-group from his earlier mistake to up his pace and overtook his team-mate at the Montreal Hairpin, matching the race-pace of leader Byrne. He pulled the gap back by half a second and broke the lap record with a 1’47.088 in the process.
Brookes was hunting Byrne down and by lap six, and further down the table Tsingtao’s stand-in rider Peter Hickman had his second retirement of the day. In a repeat of the first race he again experienced technical problems with his Kawasaki.
A lap later the leading duo of Brookes and Byrne extended their advantage over Bridewell by one second. Further down the field the battle for fifth was intensifying between Walker, Da Costa and Kiyo, with the Frenchman out-braking the veteran racer to go into fifth.
On the back straight with seven laps remaining Brookes got into the slip-stream of Byrne and gathered enough pace to make a move – and he did at Montreal, only for Byrne to re-take the lead two corners later. While the pair were duelling for the win, it allowed Bridewell and Ellison to catch up, and the quartet had a six second lead over Da Costa and Kiyonari.
On lap eleven there was an intense fight for fifth between the French and Japanese contingent – of Da Costa and Kiyo, but the former triple champ edged on ahead to regain fifth, followed by Walker, Linfoot and Hopkins.
But Brookes – who was matching the pace of Byrne high-sided at Montreal, losing out on his chance of a podium finish.
While all the drama was happening at the top, there was some unrest further down the pack, and Walker, who was in sixth had a technical issue and fell out of the standings. With Byrne comfortably ahead, Bridewell and Ellison were dicing for the second spot with Ellison going into second at Murrays on the penultimate lap.
Kiyo and Da Costa completed the top five, with Linfoot, Smrz, Waters and Cooper rounding up the top ten. WD40’s Barry Burrell finished in the points once again to bag his second top 11 finish this afternoon.
