PBM Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne appeared to be unfazed by the mixed weather conditions during the final MCE British Superbike race at Knockhill, and went on to take the race-two victory, from team-mate Stuart Easton and Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes.
The current championship leader now has double back-to-back wins under his belt this season, but not only that he set a new lap record, of a 48.252 too. With a maximum points haul this afternoon Byrne continues to extend his lead in the overall standings.
The race was initially red flagged on the nineteenth rotation as rain came down on the circuit, and the track activity came to a halt. The session then turned into a eleven lap sprint race, and was declared wet.
When the outing got underway for the second time, it was Byrne who had the best start, from Byrne and Brookes. JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s James Ellison did have a positive start, but then experienced a technical problem at Duffus Dip, bringing a premature end to his race weekend.
At the half way stage the leading trio pulled away from Quattro Plant Kawasaki’s Luke Mossey and Buildbase BMW’s Ryuichi Kiyonari, who benefited from a good start to push his S1000RR up to fifth, just ahead of Tyco BMW’s Michael Laverty.
But as Mossey was on a hot lap he crashed, unhurt at Leslie’s while in fourth. With the youngster out of action it moved Kiyo up to fourth with Honda Racing’s Jason O’Halloran sailing to fifth at the flag.
Laverty fell back to sixth, followed by Be Wiser Kawasaki’s Danny Buchan, JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s James Westmoreland and RAF Reserves Peter Hickman. Bennetts Suzuki’s Christian Iddon rounded off the top ten. His team-mate, Josh Waters was the last of the point finishers.
Before the red flags came out and before the restart, it was Laverty who got the hole-shot from Ellison, Easton and Byrne, but Ellison went wide while fighting for second and ended up in the gravel. But he managed to hang on to his ZX-10R but slipped back to 24th, after starting from pole.
With Ellison out of contention for a podium finish it pushed the PBM duo of Easton and Byrne further up the field into second and third, on lap nine. The wee Haggis did get the pace to overtake Laverty to go into the lead at Hislop’s, but went wide at the Hairpin allowing the Northern Irishman, Byrne and Brookes to plough on ahead.
But on lap sixteen of 30 Byrne got into the slip stream of Laverty and soared into the lead, but then Laverty had to contend with charges from the other PBM ZX-10R of Easton, who was edging ever closer to the Wales-based rider.
In a repeat of the opening BSB race there were a few incidences out on track. Tyco BMW’s Tommy Bridewell was fighting high inside the top ten, but he crashed out at Scotsman. Anvil Hire TAG Racing’s Filip Backlund retired to the pits after only a handful of laps, with a technical issue.
Quattro Plant Kawasaki’s Howie Mainwaring was absent from the final race, due to his bike being too damaged after a big race-one crash.
