Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne and the Be Wiser Ducati team maintained their challenge for the 2017 MCE British Superbike Championship with the five times champion taking a pair of third place finishes in round four held at Knockhill this weekend.

Having qualified in fourth place for the first 30-lap race around the 1.26-mile Fife track, the team worked hard overnight and with changes to the factory-backed Be Wiser Ducati Panigale R, the Londoner topped the timesheets in morning warm up having lapped three tenths of a second quicker than he had done in qualifying.

Despite that, Byrne didn’t get a great start in the opening race and after a physical first lap, he found himself back in eighth at the completion of it. He regrouped over the next few laps and by lap seven he was up into fourth before moving up to third at half race distance. Despite being under constant pressure, Shakey held on to take a good podium finish and, equally important, another podium credit.

The Sittingbourne rider started the second encounter from fifth place on the grid and with a better start held onto that position in the early stages before moving up to third as the race progressed. Byrne dropped to fourth in the latter stages but with a concerted effort made it up to third at the chequered flag to claim his second podium of the weekend.

The result moved Shakey up to third in the title race going into round five at Snetterton in two weeks’ time whereby team-mate Glenn Irwin, who was injured during practice on Friday and ruled out of the weekend with a dislocated arm and shoulder, hopes to be back in action on the Be Wiser Ducati Panigale R to kick start his title bid.

Shane Byrne said after another successful weekend: “We came here looking for two strong results and whilst we’ve all worked incredibly hard as a team to get the results we’ve got, it hasn’t been the greatest of weekends.”

“We changed the bike massively for race one and at the end of the day, we’ve salvaged two podiums so it certainly hasn’t been the worst case scenario either. We’ve got some good circuits coming up with Snetterton, the Brands GP circuit and Thruxton, ones I really like and should suit the bike, so I’m looking forward to getting to those now.”

Phil Borley, Technical Director added: “Having won here last year, it’s obviously disappointing not to have won again but we didn’t quite have the pace today. We made numerous changes to the bike between qualifying and the races which helped but the set-up still wasn’t quite what Shakey needed it to be.”

“Points in the championship and the podium credits are important and Shakey now has himself firmly back in the top six, which is obviously where we need to be. We have circuits coming up that should suit both Shakey and the bike whilst having Glenn back and challenging will be another boost to the team.”

MCE British Superbike Championship race one (30 laps)
1 Jake Dixon (Kawasaki)
2 Luke Mossey (Kawasaki)
3 Shane Byrne (Be Wiser Ducati)
4 Jason O’Halloran (Honda)
5 Taylor Mackenzie (Suzuki)
6 Peter Hickman (BMW)

MCE British Superbike Championship race two (30 laps)
1 Jake Dixon (Kawasaki)
2 James Ellison (Yamaha)
3 Shane Byrne (Be Wiser Ducati)
4 Luke Mossey (Kawasaki)
5 Josh Brookes (Yamaha)
6 Dan Linfoot (Honda)

Championship Positions (after four rounds)
1 Mossey 141
2 Haslam 111
3 Byrne 90
4 Iddon 86
5 O’Halloran 83
6 Brookes 78
9 Irwin 63