Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne makes it three wins and a second place in the opening four races of the MCE British Superbike season.
The Kent rider took victory in the opening race at Oulton Park over the Bank holiday weekend before having to settle for second place in race two of the weekend.
It represents an excellent start to the season for Byrne who has a thirty point lead over Josh Brookes going into the next round of the season from Snetterton in June.
Having started from pole position in race one Byrne lead the race from start to finish and controlled the race intelligently from the off.
Even after a safety car period after one lap of the race, Brookes couldn’t find a way past Shakey and in a tense finish they were all but swapping paint to the chequered flag.
Speaking after the race, a pleased Shakey said: “Everybody always asks if you have a plan before the start of a race, but no matter what you formulate in your head these guys can always run a mock with that! My plan was to get a good start, dig in and try and get a gap and if I could then perfect, although I wasn’t expecting that to happen.
“I would have been happy to settle for second or third for a bit and then the Safety Car came out and when we got started again I wanted to try and get a gap, which I did. Then with four or five laps to go my board said +1.4 and then it came down and in big chunks and I thought ‘here comes Josh then!’ I didn’t want to push more and ride into a mistake but I didn’t want to let off either and give Josh any more of an incentive or dangle a carrot, so I stayed consistent and fortunately it was just enough so I am happy.”
Race two was almost a role reversal with Brookes starting the race from pole position and leading from the lights going out to the flag dropping.
This time it was Byrne who had to do the chasing and he didn’t give up for the entire race, even with James Ellison trying to get involved and take second place from Shakey.
With a lot of the corner being quite tight, Shakey had to bide his time before making his move, which he tried to do on a couple of occasions but Brookes shut the door and took his first victory of the season and prevented Shakey making it four from four.
Giving his thoughts after race two, Byrne added: “In race two, Josh got the hole shot and led all the way and whilst there were a couple of places where I could get a good run on him and close up, I just couldn’t quite get close enough to make a pass.”
One man who was equally pleased with the performance of not just Shane but his teammate Stuart Easton was team boss Paul Bird.
He said: “If anyone had offered me those results at the start of the weekend, I’d have snatched their hands off. Oulton Park has always been a very strong track for the Yamaha so for Shakey to win race one and come so close in race two was a fantastic achievement and to leave with a 30 point lead is a bonus. Stuart suffered from arm pump for much of the weekend so he could have been stronger but we will settle for him scoring important points to claim fourth in the table. It’s job done as far as I’m concerned and the team has done a great job.”
The season now moves onto Snetterton over the weekend of the 13-15th June after a month’s break, and Shakey will be hoping that he and Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki can return to the top step of the podium.
Pictures supplied by http://www.psp-images.co.uk/