Be Wiser Ducati’s Shane Byrne had an extremely successful MCE British Superbike race weekend at Snetterton. First he topped the free practice sessions, then blitzed his way to pole position and set a new outright lap record in the process, then did the double.
Everything went to plan for Byrne and the Pirelli tyre worked wonders on his Panigale. He was able to conserve the tyres and run a good pace, before making his attack in the final third of both races.
Byrne ran with the softer front and back tyres and they both worked well in the hot track temperatures. In race one Byrne had a steady start but powered through to take the victory.
In race two Byrne was locked in a fight with Anvil Hire TAG Yamaha’s Josh Brookes and with a handful of laps remaining he made his move at Murrays and snatched the win from the Australian.
“The objective was to get into the Showdown contention and pull back some podium points. I wasn’t too stressed about leading as I knew we could run a good pace not try too hard and conserve the tyre,” said Byrne at the track.
“In race two I had to push harder and push the tyre more which gave me the 1’47.1 second lap which smashed my own lap record and halved the gap in one lap. So I continued to chip away and keep on top of the tyre and then with two or three laps to go I made a move before going defensive to finishing the race off.”
Byrne showed just how strong he was as the fastest-ever lap around the track was a crazily quick 1’46.863 and his race two pace ended up going towards a 1’47.143 time, so the Ducati rider is going into his home round of Brands full of confidence, and now he is up to second in the overall championship standings.
Speaking after race one Byrne added: “I just wanted to stay safe for the first few laps and I was in fourth or fifth place and I just chipped away chipped away and then James made a mistake going into the corner before the one going in the back straight and I thought there is my opportunity to pass him.
“It struck me on about lap 12 or 13 that maybe quite late on that I hadn’t actually done a very fast lap yet and I had to get my head down a bit.
“I was trying to get the bike up and not use the edge of the tyre at all, but that fortunately gave me some tyre left to push on with the lap time at the end. The race went exactly to plan and we knew we could do a good job with that tyre as I did a good race run on it yesterday.”
