Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne has branded his MCE British Superbike weekend as ‘difficult’. The reigning champ struggled with his bike in race one, but did get on to the third step of the podium. His team made improvements in-between the two races, and it appeared to have worked.

Byrne was able to dominate the final race of the day, and led from the start, and successfully held off charges made by Tyco Suzuki’s Josh Brookes and Samsung Honda’s Alex Lowes. The rider did make a small mistake on the final lap going into the start and finish straight, but was able to recover to take the win.

“The first race was terrible and I was trying to catch the front two, but the team worked hard for me in-between the two races. We made some changes to the front forks and felt more confident to push and put the front of the bike in to where I wanted it to go,” said Byrne, speaking at the circuit.

“I got off to a fairly good start in the second race, and then the safety car came out and I pushed hard for a lap or two and then settled down for a bit because the gap was plus zero and it was not moving so I thought there was no point pushing my balls trying to break the guys, so I dropped off a little bit and nobody came past. Then there were four or five laps to go and I thought I should get my finger out, and then it went up to plus point three, and then it went back to plus zero on the final lap.

“I made a small mistake on the start and finish on the last lap and I thought I had given the race away but fortunately we pulled it off. I think it is clear to see, Josh has been moaning all year that his bike is slow, but it looks like they have fixed that, and the Honda is performing well too, and any top speed advantage we looked like we had seems to have disappeared and we need to work hard between now and Brands.”

Byrne will return to his home circuit of Brands Hatch for the sixth BSB round, and has high hopes of doing the double, and bagging wins in both races in two weeks time.

“I am going to Brands to win races, and that is what I try to do every weekend. After the first race I could have killed my team and after the second race I could have married them. It has been a really difficult weekend and I gave them a lot of stick and I would like to dedicate that win to my guys.”