Be Wiser Ducati’s Shane Byrne put in another dominant performance and crossed the finishing line in the opening MCE British Superbike race at Thruxton with a three second advantage over second place finisher, Tyco BMW’s Michael Laverty.
Byrne now extends his lead in the overall standings, and has been on form all weekend after starting the race from pole position. Quattro Plant Kawasaki’s Luke Mossey upped his pace with two laps remaining to finish on the third step of the rostrum.
Initially it was Byrne who got the hole-shot followed by Linfoot, Bridewell and McConnell. Nearly all of the rider’s were on the softer option rear tyre apart from Linfoot, Bridewell and Mossey who went for the SC1, with Haslam opting for the SC2 harder front compound.
Meanwhile Laverty was pushing his way up the field and went into second at Cobb overtaking Linfoot and Bridewell in one move on lap five. Then ePayMe Yamaha’s Stuart Easton experienced an engine blow out at Noble and crashed out hard on lap eight. He was taken to the medical centre for further assessment and because of the track contamination the race was red flagged. The Scottish rider was later declared fit to continue for the rest of the race weekend.
At the twelve lapper restart, which was delayed slightly because of a rain shower, it was Laverty who was the quickest off the line, with Byrne and McConnell in tow. But O’Halloran was closing in and overtook McConnell in one swift move at Cobb. But McConnell appeared to have a technical problem and in the end slipped out of the points.
But on lap three Byrne got the better of Laverty at Club and soared into the lead. Elsewhere Haslam was inside the top five and had McConnell as his target. But Mossey was closing in on the Smalley rider and they touched bikes at the Club chicane and both went wide on lap seven.
Then Mossey ploughed on ahead and Haslam went back and was eaten up by Irwin, Bridewell and JG Speedfit team-mate James Ellison. The Cumbrian had a resurgence in form and was closing in on the Bennetts Suzuki of local lad, Tommy Bridewell with two laps remaining but the Devizes swearbox went wide at Cobb, paving the way for Ellison to gain a place, but Bridewell fought back.
Further up the pack on the penultimate lap Mossey overtook O’Halloran to go into third, with the likeable Australian appearing to have tyre wear issues and when the chequered flag came out fell back to sixth, behind Bridewell and Ellison.
Bennetts Suzuki’s Ryuichi Kiyonari crossed the line in seventh with Cooper, Smrz, Jessopp and Irwin completing the top eleven. JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Peter Hickman and Leon Haslam finished the opening race in P12 and P13 respectively, with Stapleford and Backlund the last of the points finishers.
