Round three of the 2018 Bennetts British Superbike Championship heads for Oulton Park in Cheshire this bank holiday weekend with the Be Wiser Ducati Racing Team’s Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne all set for the challenge.

Six-times and reigning champion Byrne, from Sittingbourne in Kent, holds second place in the standings on the factory-backed Be Wiser Ducati Panigale R coming into Cumbrian team owner Paul Bird’s local round.

Byrne won last time out at Brands Hatch to follow up his podium in the opening round at Donington Park over Easter.

The omens are good for the Be Wiser Ducati pairing of Byrne and Glenn Irwin who finished 1-2 at the corresponding meeting last year to herald Byrne’s first win of his championship winning season, although Irwin’s was blighted by injury later in the year.

This year, however, Irwin set fastest time in last week’s official test at Oulton Park, lapping under the existing lap record, whilst Byrne, who has won 11 times there, was third quickest despite not having an ideal set-up.

Going into the weekend, Shane Byrne is looking forward to delivering another solid set of results: “I always look forward to riding my bike at the best of times, but I really enjoy riding at Oulton Park, so I can’t wait for this weekend.”

“We found a good direction with the bike last year at Oulton which will be our starting point for this weekend as the test last week wasn’t as good as we would have liked.”

“We tried a couple of things but had to go backwards to go forwards with settings, but we blew out the cobwebs nonetheless.”

“There’s a possibility we might have some new parts to try for this weekend too, so fingers crossed it’s going to be a great weekend’s racing.”

Picture supplied by PSP Images.