It was another solid weekend for Kent’s Shane Byrne in the MCE British Superbike Championship with a brace of second places at Thruxton.

On what was a testing weekend for Shakey and his Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki team he will be satisfied that he was challenging for the race wins.

Having qualified in fourth place Byrne made his way through into second place in race one and tried to keep pace with the rapid Josh Brookes, who took the double over the weekend.

Speaking after race one, he said: “To be honest we had a plan for that race which was to let someone else lead. I got a great start, Dan was leading, and Josh was super comfortable and I figured he would have the pace to disappear. I was trying to be careful and sat there for the laps that Josh followed Dan and then he made his move.

“I was a little bit back at that point and it took me a lap or two to get ahead of Dan and I pushed hard to catch Josh but I made a few mistakes. I had a couple of moments in the Complex, losing the front a couple of times and then flipping Kiyo rocked up at the end and caused all sorts of chaos!

“It was a great race, he passed me in the Complex and I thought ‘oh no, it’s the last lap, that’s a bit cruel’. I got a really good run out of Church and got in his slip-stream and right at the last minute he braked and I thought ‘right it is time for me to brake then’. I just managed to hold it; I had to park my bike a bit in the last chicane and then had a good drive to the line.”

The second race was red flagged due to an incident and it followed much the same format with the lead changing hands several times, before Brookes hit the front and crossed the line first.

Giving his thoughts after race two, Shakey added: “You would have to say that being able to run as close to Josh as we did in the second part, when he was having such strong race, shows we made a step forward.

“It is difficult to go into what was like race three in effect, where the second race was stopped, and still be trying to make a decision on the settings. That said the boys have worked hard this weekend.

“It started amazingly and we did a 1m:16.0s on my first flying lap on Friday and I thought ‘blimey we are on to something good here’, but we didn’t really improve ever since and that has been a bitter pill to swallow.

“In the end we were really close to Josh, who had the measure of everyone this weekend though. I enjoyed that race a lot more and hopefully we can get to Oulton Park, a track that we have won at this year already, and try and turn the tables to get back on the top step again.”

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