Tyco BMW’s Christian Iddon finished the opening MCE British Superbike race in second at Brands Hatch, and matched the pace of eventual race winner, Shane Byrne in what was a tight battle for the victory.

At the end of the race the Be Wiser Panigale edged away from the Stockport native and had a 1.75 second advantage as Byrne crossed the finishing line. But it was a strong outing on the Tyco S1000RR and his team made some changes that certainly worked, as Iddon had the pace to start on the front row for race two on Sunday.

Iddon is in Riders Cup contention and has a total of 207 points, and is aiming for race wins and more podiums in the double-header tomorrow. But during the middle of the race the rider felt that he had a bit too much engine braking happening on the BMW and his team will look into that tonight.

“I heard the big Ducati behind me and I was fairly sure he would come through. The race went pretty good and there were places where I was a bit quicker then a bit slower I definitely need to work on those,” said Iddon at the track.

“From about mid race onwards I started to get a bit too much engine braking going on and sort of got worst and then started to miss fire I don’t think it cost me a lot of time but the last two or three laps I was worried and I was happy to maintain a reasonable pace through that. We have had results like this before but that was probably the easiest it was to ride but we got beat so still areas to improve.”