Smiths Triumph’s Billy McConnell took Motorpoint British Supersport victory by the finest of margins, edging his teammate Graeme Gowland by one thousandth of a second in a photo finish.
The duo battled all race long for the victory, joined for the majority of the race by Profile Triumph teammates Luke Stapleford and Luke Mossey. The leading quartet pulled away from the rest of the field and began to swap and change places on every lap.
All four riders had their turn at leading the race, but the foursome was reduced to a twosome with three laps remaining as Mossey and Stapleford collided together at the Hairpin. Stapleford tried to muscle his way past his teammate on the brakes put ended up colliding with him. The pair were sent wide and on to the grass with Stapleford managing to rejoin and Mossey ending face down in the gravel.
It left the Smiths Triumph duo of Gowland and McConnell to battle it out for the race win and the championship lead. As the pair came through on the last lap, Gowland lead before McConnell dived under the inside at Coppice. Gowland looked to reply at Charlies but McConnell left no room. The Australian quickly moved to the inside at the end of the back straight, once again fighting off Gowland’s advances.
McConnell looked to have the victory in the bag before spinning up on the exit of the hairpin and allowing Gowland to pull alongside him on the exit of the final turn. The pair were side by side as they took the chequered flag, with the victory initially being handed to Gowland. However, after a photo finish was inspected, the win was reversed and given to McConnell by 0.001 of a second.
McConnell now leads the championship by four points, as well as being on pole position for tomorrow’s feature race after setting a new lap record.
Stapleford came through to take third place, his fifth podium finish of the year. Gearlink Kawasaki’s Glenn Irwin pushed through from the fourth row of the grid to edge Luke Jones and title challenger Alistair Seeley for fourth place. The Mar-Train Yamaha rider now sits 18 points adrift of McConnell in the championship.
Luke Hedger came through in seventh ahead of Floridian James Rispoli. Sam Hornsey and South African Bjorn Estment rounded out the top ten.
