McAMS Yamaha’s Tarran Mackenzie took his third Bennetts British Superbike victory of the season on Saturday getting the better of Tommy Bridewell and team-mate Jason O’Halloran in a thrilling opening race at Snetterton.
Mackenzie grabbed the holeshot only for pole man Glenn Irwin (Honda Racing) to immediately take the lead at the next corner and it was soon an Irwin 1-2 with brother Andrew moving into second on the Synetiq BMW.
By the end of the lap though, the running order was Glenn Irwin, Mackenzie, Andrew Irwin, O’Halloran, Lee Jackson (FS-3 Racing Kawasaki) and Gino Rea (Buildbase Suzuki) but Christian Iddon’s race was already over with another crash on the VisionTrack Ducati.
The running order remained the same next time around with the front four edging away slightly but by lap three the leading 11 riders were all pretty much nose to tail once more with O’Halloran now having overhauled Andrew Irwin for third.
The Australian then got ahead of Mackenzie through the chicane as just 1.6s covered the leading nine riders, Bridewell, in ninth, the fastest man on track on his Oxford Products Racing Ducati.
Disaster soon followed for race leader Irwin though as he lost the front at Oggies on the fifth lap and crashed out. This was quickly followed by Andrew Irwin striking mechanical trouble and as he pulled to the side of the track, Rea crashed out after clipping the back of Jackson.
This split the pack and at the end of lap six, O’Halloran and Mackenzue were 1.5s clear of new third place man Bridewell who’d leapt up the order after the shenanigans of the previous lap. Jackson was now fourth ahead of Josh Brookes and local ace Ryan Vickers.
Lap eight saw Mackenzie slip up the inside of O’Halloran at Agostini’s and there was just 0.141s covering the front two at the end of the lap with Bridewell now having closed to within a second, bringing Jackson and Brookes with him.
The latter two swapped places repeatedly on the next lap but just as Brookes had got onto Bridewell’s back wheel he ran wide coming onto the back straight and back into the clutches of Jackson.
Going into the final lap, just 0.271s covered Mackenzie, O’Halloran and Bridewell but the latter’s chances seemed to have disappeared when he ran wide under braking at Agostini’s.
However, coming into the final chicane, they were back together again and it was a drag to the line with Mackenzie holding on for the win by 0.069s and it was Bridewell who got the verdict for second from O’Halloran, the front three split by just 0.095s!
Brookes and Jackson were only half a second further back in fourth and fifth and with Vickers having a lonely ride into sixth it was Peter Hickman, Rory Skinner, Bradley Ray and Danny Buchan who completed the top-10.
