Kent’s very own Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne had an up and down weekend in the latest round of the MCE British Superbike Championship at Oulton Park.

In the first race saw Shakey come from fifth on the grid to finish on the podium, in the second race he looked odds on for the win but was taken down by Ryuichi Kiyonari.

Byrne and his PBM Kawasaki team started the weekend feeling confident following the official test a week earlier at the Cheshire circuit, starting the event by topping the first free practice session. However as the conditions changed throughout the weekend it produced a challenge for the team ahead of the opening race of the event.

The defending champion qualified in fifth place for the opening race, battling at the front of the pack before claiming his fifth podium finish of the season in third place.

In the second race Byrne and the team had worked hard to make further improvements to close the gap to their rivals and a strong start saw the four-time champion at the front of the pack. However his hopes of adding another win to his tally were dashed when he was clipped by title rival Ryuichi Kiyonari and the pair crashed out of contention. Byrne was unhurt in the crash and now is looking ahead to the calendar break and a forthcoming test at Snetterton later this month.

This weekend has been a great weekend in some ways; we had a great test here last week which gave us a real good opportunity to try some stuff on the bike and it was like my Spanish testing programme all rolled into one day last week. We got through some really good work and the bike felt better here than it had all year so we were in a good place from the word go and the team worked really hard, equally during the race weekend and at the test, to give me a good package.

Speaking after the weekends racing, Shakey said: “We got caught a little bit short on raceday as the temperature was by far the highest it had been all weekend and Pirelli had been telling us that the tyre choice we had done all our work on wasn’t going to be any good and we would have to run the zero tyre, but the only problem with that was I had only used it for a handful of laps in qualifying so I had absolutely no idea how the bike would be.

“It’s fair to say that Tommy Bridewell rode outstandingly in race one and ran a lot faster for a lot longer than I anticipated anyone going to be honest. I sat back about a second off for a bit as I thought I don’t know what is going to happen to the rear tyre and he just didn’t slow down and I couldn’t get back after that.

“We made some big changes to the bike for race two and it felt much, much better. I told them what I thought after race one and they looked at the data and it was like riding a different bike and I felt really confident and really happy. I waited until there were six laps to go as I knew that would be two thirds race distance and then I wanted to make some moves. Stuart [Easton] came past me and then I got him back and put two moves on Kiyo and the second one was much more decisive. I then tried to get a bit of a gap for the first part of the lap and then I went into Hizzys and for a moment I thought I had just run in with a bit too much back brake on and spun the bike around.

“Then as I was rolling through the grass I noticed Kiyo’s bike come flying passed and I thought ‘ah, that wasn’t the case’. It is what it is. I have an awful lot of respect and admiration for Kiyo as a rider and I know full well that would have been the last thing he intended. I also know how bad it feels for those split seconds before the collision because you make a decision and you don’t get a choice to back out of it, you know straight away it isn’t going to work and wish you could disappear or the ground would swallow you up before you hit the other person. He has been around and said sorry.

“It is a bit frustrating as I felt I had that win in the bag but at the same time I am over the moon for the PBM team and Stuart as I was cheering him from the wall at Hizzys so I am really chuffed to bits for him. Hopefully now we can be back where we need to be at Snetterton.”

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