Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes fought off the challenges from fellow Showdown rivals, PBM Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne and JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s James Ellison to snatch the MCE British Superbike race-one win at Silverstone.
The Bringelly rider now has a 33 point advantage over Byrne, with the quadruple-champ finishing in second with Showdown spoiler, Peter Hickman completing the rostrum in third.
Ellison did lead the way but a few mistakes meant that he slipped back to fifth, with Moto Rapido Ducati’s John Hopkins staying on the pace to bag some points in fourth. But Hickman did experience some drama at the end of the race, when his RAF Reserves BMW’s belly pan caught fire - but he managed to jump off in time.
Initially it was Hopkins who got the hole-shot ahead of Brookes and Ellison, but halfway though the opening rotation the American went wide allowing Brookes to edge on ahead.
But Ellison was not giving up the fight and on the penultimate corner went into second, leaving the Ducati of Hopkins in third. Byrne started from the fourth row and on lap four was already inside the top five and set a new lap record on a 2’05.458.
Ellison was fighting back and at Stowe on lap seven went into the front after making a move that stuck to get the better of Brookes. With seven laps to go Byrne passed Hickman and the leading foursome broke away from the rest of the field.
The PBM rider was not down and out yet and got the better of former MotoGP rider, Hopkins to go into third with six laps left at Stowe. Byrne soon had Brookes as his next target and made a clean move on his rival, only for the Australian to go back into second at Copse on lap eleven.
With only twp laps remaining Brookes regained the lead as Ellison went wide and opened up the gap at the front, and Byrne got in the slipstream of Ellison on the Wellington Straight to go into second and began to edge ever closer to Brookes.
Slightly further down the field Hickman regained his earlier good form and went passed Hopkins and was neck and neck with Ellison on the penultimate lap. But the Cumbrian went wide going into Luffield allowing the S100RR of Hickman to go through to third and a possible podium finish. But Ellison made another mistake at Village allowing the Panigale to go into fourth on the final lap. At the flag Brookes took the win from Byrne and Hickman, with Hopkins and Ellison rounding off the top five.
All the Showdown riders finished race-one inside the top ten. Tyco BMW’s Michael Laverty and Tommy Bridewell crossed the line in sixth and ninth respectively. Honda Racing’s Dan Linfoot was unable to pass Laverty and had to settle for seventh.
Milwaukee Yamaha’s Jakub Smrz completed the top ten, with Bennetts Suzuki’s Christian Iddon holding on to eighth, with team-mate Josh Waters the last of the points finishers.
There were a few fallers including, PBM Kawasaki’s substitute rider, Danny Buchan, who’s deputising for the injured Stuart Easton. The tall Essex lad crashed unhurt at Copse.
Three laps later fellow young gun, Quattro Plant Kawasaki’s Luke Mossey fell in exactly the same spot at Copse, but walked away from the incident. Triple-champ Buildbase BMW’s Ryuichi Kiyonari appeared to have technical problems and retired to the pits while in 20th place.
