Jason O’Halloran’s rollercoaster start to the 2023 British Superbike Championship continued at Donington Park at the weekend but the McAMS Yamaha rider at least got back to winning ways with victory coming in Sunday’s opening race.

Either side of that though was frustration with a tyre issue on Saturday dropping him down order, as well as running off track after contact from Peter Hickman, whilst a overheating issue saw him unable to hold onto the front runners in the final race of the weekend.

“Saturday’s Sprint race was frustrating,” he said. “I felt comfortable from the very start of the weekend and wasn’t out of the top three in any session. We made a choice to go with the soft tyre as we’d done a good race run on it earlier in the day. We knew it was a gamble but in the sense that it might not last the whole race, but I had no grip from lap one so that was really strange.”

Glenn Irwin experienced a similar issue but held on for fifth unlike O’Halloran who dropped down to 14^th although his cause wasn’t helped when Hickman dived under him at Schwantz Curve which led to the Australian having a high-speed excursion along the grass.

However, Sunday’s opening 20-lap encounter saw him back to his best as he claimed his first win of the season, and 23^rd of his career, when he came home three tenths of a second clear of fellow Yamaha rider Ryan Vickers. He ran up front early in the final race as well but the overheating issue dropped him back to seventh at the chequered flag.”

“I’ve had such a bad start to the year, but it only takes one race to turn it all around. It was difficult to know how fast to go in the longer race, but I settled into the race really well and when the safety car came out, it helped bring me back to the front three. We made the most of the last four or five laps and managed to get our first win of the year.”

“I was really chuffed to the win as it’s obviously been a bit of a rollercoaster these first three rounds but we know we’ve had the speed, we’ve just had to put it together. I’m disappointed with the last race though as I felt like we had good speed and the bike felt good, but we had an overheating issue which hurt our straight-line speed. All in all a positive weekend, three finishes, competitive throughout and our first win of 2023.”