Kent’s Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne blitzed the field at the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship at Snetterton.

It was a totally dominant race weekend for Byrne as he regained the lead in the championship with his double.

Whilst he has been on the podium consistently this season, he has yet to dominate race weekends like we know that he can, and led him to the 2014 title. That form certainly returned at Snetterton as he won both races with ease.

In fact Byrne had not won a race since the opening round of the season at Donington Park in April, but he beat off the challenge of Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh rookes, who had also been scrapping with fellow countryman James O’Halloran for Honda Racing, in both races.

Whilst Byrne surged back to the top, triple Champion Ryuichi Kiyonari’s troubles continued and he held 19th after tyre woes during the opening race and James Ellison also was struck by misfortune as he was forced to retire, relinquishing his standings lead.

An incident-packed second race featured early drama for Kiyonari as he crashed out of contention on the third lap before the Nissan GT-R Safety Car was called in to play when Taylor Mackenzie had to eject from his WD40 Kawasaki as it became engulfed in flames.

The race soon resumed and Byrne was not going to take any prisoners, claiming the second win of the day. However behind the chasing pack were scrapping it out and Brookes overcame some earlier electrical gremlins to claim second after a pulling a determined move on O’Halloran at Nelsons.

Speaking after an excellent weekend, a pleased Byrne said: “The weekend feels pretty good with these two wins. We had a problem in the first race with the bike thinking that it was changing gear when it was not – that race was actually a lot harder than it looked because of that. I had to be careful to keep a good pace and rhythm and bring the bike home to win.

“The guys fixed the bike and it was faultless in the second race and I never looked back. I anticipated it would be a tougher race with Josh [Brookes] starting alongside me but I chipped away at it then saw Jason [O’Halloran] up there. I watched my pit-boards, rode consistently and did what I had to do. It felt like I was cruising around – the team had worked so hard too hard to get us where we are, so now it is onwards and upwards for us.”

Images courtesy of www.psp-images.co.uk