The MCE British Superbike season goes down to the wire at Brands Hatch and Shane Byrne is still in with a shot at winning title number five.

In the penultimate round of the season it was a battling performance for Byrne with a second place finish in race one, and a fifth place in race two. With Josh Brookes winning both races, it is going to be a tough task at Brands for the defending champion.

Having been announced today as re-signing for the Penrith-based PBM team in MCE BSB for 2016, the four-times British champion was hoping to return to winning ways following a disappointing opening round of the Showdown two weeks ago in Assen.

Aboard the Be Wiser Insurance-backed PBM Kawasaki ZX-10R, the defending champion showed good pace in qualifying although a technical problem in the final session, where a tyre spun on the rim, relegated him to row four of the grid for today’s opening 14-lap encounter.

It mattered not as by the second lap of the first race, he was running inside the top six and aided by the fastest lap of the race, the Sittingbourne rider continued to make steady progress through the field and moved into a podium position on lap nine.

Getting stronger as the race progressed, Shakey overhauled championship rival Josh Brookes for second place a lap later and although the Australian responded and ultimately took the race win, Byrne took a fine second place to maintain his bid for an unprecedented fifth title.

Starting from pole position for the second 14-lap race, both Byrne and the team were hopeful of challenging for the race win and it started ideally as he grabbed an early lead. Just like the first race, tyre wear was going to be a factor in the second half of the race and as the grip deteriorated, he slipped back to fifth in the closing stages to lose ground in the title race.

As a result, Byrne is now 47 points adrift of Josh Brookes with just three races remaining, but given the dramatic outcome to last year’s title race, whereby leading contender Ryuichi Kiyonari crashed out in practice, Byrne hasn’t given up on the title just yet.

Giving his thoughts after the weekend, Byrne said: “Starting from tenth for the first race was a bit rubbish, but Silverstone has a lot of overtaking opportunities so I wasn’t too downbeat plus we knew what the problem was.

“We had a tough start to the weekend, but that’s why I like the team so much as they work so hard for me and they gave me a great bike for the race. I dug in as deep as I could and I thought I might have a chance to win but second place was OK.

“Race two didn’t go to plan and now we have a bit of a mountain to climb, but we’ve not given up just yet and will take it to Josh again at Brands Hatch in two weeks’ time.”

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