Kent’s Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne is already tearing it up in pre-season testing ahead of the start of the MCE British Superbike Championship.

Just yesterday he was out on track along with his fellow BSB Competitors at Snetterton and he set down a huge marker for the 2014 season.

As Shakey set a brand new lap record for Snetterton as he went round quicker than anyone else has ever done, his time was a full 0.648s quicker than Jacub Smrz in second.

Byrne had been improving his pace throughout the day with the triple champion waiting until the final session of the day to set a time of 1m:47.955s, his blistering pace 0.068 seconds under the current Superbike specification lap record in 2011.

Speaking after the test session, a pleased Byrne said: “This has been a good test for us and it shows that over the winter the Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki team haven’t stood still. Snetterton for us in the past few years hasn’t been our strongest track, but I have really worked well with the new 17″ Pirelli tyres, so to come here and end like this has been great.

“I did push in the final session for a lap, but I think if we had managed some more then we could have been even quicker so we are happy now and ready for Brands Hatch.”

Millsport Ducati held second on the timesheets despite sitting out the final hour after a crash in the penultimate session, the Czech rider holding off a charging Chris Walker on the leading Lloyds British GBmoto Racing Kawasaki in third place.

Honda UK Racing’s return to the track ahead of their wildcard performances this season started positively with Frenchman Julien Da Costa holding fourth position ahead of Tyco Suzuki’s John Hopkins in the final stages.

James Ellison edged ahead of Dan Linfoot to lock out sixth place as Stuart Easton improved his pace in the final session on-board the second Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki. Ryuichi Kiyonari overcame a small crash on his final run to still hold ninth place ahead of his Buildbase BMW race debut at Brands Hatch, just ahead of his team-mate James Westmoreland.

Aylesford’s Howie Mainwairing was back at the track yesterday with his Quattro Plant Kawasaki team, but he couldn’t take any part in the session as he dislocated his shoulder in the previous days test session.

The season gets underway next weekend at our very own Brands Hatch, in what is bound to be a bumper Easter Weekend of racing.

Pictures supplied by http://www.psp-images.co.uk/