Just a week after securing his place in the all-important Showdown which will determine the winner of the 2017 MCE British Superbike Championship, Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne heads to Oulton Park this forthcoming weekend aiming for a maximum points haul.
The five times and defending champion hasn’t enjoyed the best of luck in recent races but still leads the series going into the three deciding rounds aboard Paul Bird’s factory-backed Be Wiser Ducati Panigale R, at the track he took his first victory of the year at back in May.

The Sittingbourne-based Londoner’s advantage, now that the Showdown system is in place, is just six points ahead of Leon Haslam but had it not been for a couple of technical failures and a pair of crashes in recent races, that gap should have been bigger and Byrne is relishing the opportunity to rectify the situation, especially with improvements to the Be Wiser Ducati following a visit to Silverstone by senior Ducati Corse personnel.

Speaking ahead of the weekend, Byrne said: “Clearly Silverstone last weekend never went to plan for my side of the garage, there was the possibility of 15 more Podium Points and we ended up with just one.

“That said there were plenty of positives for me too which I certainly plan on taking into the Showdown starting this coming weekend. We had a win and a second at Oulton Park earlier this year so the aim is obvious, to go one better and do the double whilst keeping a watchful eye on our closest rivals.”