Reports/Results/Images from opening BSB SBK, SS and STK races at Silverstone

2023 British Superbike Championship
Round One – Silverstone

Superbike Qualifying

Tommy Bridewell claimed the first Bennetts British Superbike Championship Omologato pole position of the 2023 season at Silverstone, launching the BeerMonster Ducati to the top in eBay Qualifying by just 0.028s from Kyle Ryde.

Bridewell’s best lap was closing on the fastest ever Bennetts BSB lap of the Silverstone National circuit as the top four riders dipped under the existing circuit record.

Ryde managed to remain in second despite having a small crash at Brooklands in the final three minutes of the session, holding the advantage from Josh Brookes by just 0.081s as three different teams and manufacturers completed the front row.

Jason O’Halloran narrowly missed out in fourth place on the McAMS Yamaha and he lines up alongside Glenn Irwin on the second BeerMonster Ducati and Danny Buchan on the SYNETIQ BMW who complete the second row.

Jack Kennedy had another strong performance; the reigning Quattro Group British Supersport Champion will start seventh on the Mar-Train Yamaha alongside Danny Kent, who makes his race debut with the Lovell Kent Racing Honda team and Christian Iddon on the Oxford Products Racing Ducati.

Leon Haslam completed the top ten as he prepares for his first race with the ROKiT BMW Motorrad Team.

Superbike Qualifying Results

Superbike Race One

Kyle Ryde (Yamaha) triumphed in the opening Bennetts British Superbike Championship race of the season at Silverstone, claiming a hard-fought victory in the Bennetts BikeSocial Sprint Race for the LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha team.

Ryde had initially launched to the front of the pack on the opening lap from his front row grid position, but Tommy Bridewell (Ducati) stormed into the lead as the pack reached Brooklands for the first time, with Josh Brookes (BMW), Jason O’Halloran (Yamaha) and Glenn Irwin (Ducati) the leading contenders.

Bridewell was then pushing to hold onto the lead, but Ryde reclaimed the position two laps later with a move at Copse, but his BeerMonster Ducati rival fired back ahead on the same lap.

O’Halloran was on the move too and he had pushed up the order into second by the fourth lap behind Bridewell as Ryde was relegated to third in the early stages.

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By lap six, O’Halloran had gained control of the lead as the McAMS Yamaha rider moved ahead of Bridewell, Ryde, Brookes and Glenn Irwin with reigning Quattro Group British Supersport Champion Jack Kennedy (Yamaha) also joining the battle for the leading positions.

O’Halloran was leading the pack, but Brookes and Bridewell were dicing with Ryde for second place, before the LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha rider moved back to the front of the group with a move on the Australian.

Ryde maintained the lead in the final dash to the chequered flag despite pressure from Bridewell in the closing stages to take the first victory of the season, but the battle for the podium wasn’t complete and Brookes snatched third place with a last lap move on countryman O’Halloran.

Glenn Irwin completed the top five as he held off Leon Haslam on the ROKiT BMW Motorrad and Kennedy, who equalled his best result on his move back into Bennetts BSB with Mar-Train Yamaha.

Andrew Irwin was able to progress into eighth over the final laps for Honda Racing UK ahead of Danny Kent on the Lovell Kent Racing Honda and Danny Buchan completed the top ten for SYNETIQ BMW.

The battle for the rookies was led by Charlie Nesbitt in twelfth, with Tim Neave in 16th and Bradley Perie in 19th. Reigning Pirelli National Junior Superstock Champion Max Cook was 20th ahead of Davey Todd with Jack Scott in 23rd.

Kyle Ryde – P1

“That was a great race! It was definitely the hardest, but most enjoyable races I’ve had since I started in BSB. I was pushing because I just wanted to get to the front because I knew I had a little bit more pace than what the lap time was saying. It was very clean and good fun to ride – there was a lot of moves in turn one from me, I must’ve made about 15 moves but none of them stuck! I had to work, so for me it’s been a great weekend so far. We’ve had a great pace all weekend and been strong, the only thing that went wrong was to have a silly little crash in qualifying and that did hinder me a bit for the race. It took me ages to get going again to know where the braking marker was and Josh and Tommy kept passing me. I’m really happy to get the win; I think over the winter and everything we’ve done so far, I feel like we deserve it, so I’m very proud of myself.”

Tommy Bridewell – P2

“It was a good race and I’m proud of the team after the hard times they’ve had so for me to come in and give them a pole position and a podium straightaway has ticked a lot of boxes. After qualifying we knew we had good pace but until you get into the race, you can never be quite sure, but I really enjoyed it. When I saw there were seven laps to go, I knew I needed to pull my finger out and I was able to put the bike where I wanted and make the passes where I wanted. I felt strong and translating pole position into a podium is really good, so it bodes well for tomorrow.”

Josh Brookes – P3

“I’m very happy to be here and back on the podium. From the start of the race, I held my position and then coming onto the start/finish on the first lap, something I guess it was a tear off or something got stuck on my leg or on my foot. I could feel this flapping and I wasn’t sure what it was, I looked down just to check it wasn’t anything serious, Glenn Irwin came past me and started to point down because obviously he could see I was looking for something and I think that was a bit of a tactic as there wasn’t anything there so I lost a few places.  Anyway then I actually couldn’t believe how quickly I came back, I felt really strong up until the middle part of the race and moved back up to second. I was just trying to stay with Jason [O’Halloran] and thinking about conserving the tyre a little bit, but then I was under attack and I didn’t really have a lot more to give at that point in the race, so I was just trying to hold my position and not make any mistakes. As the tyre wore and got slippy I started to make some mistakes on corner entry and slipped back to fourth. On the last lap Jason looked to be slowing up, maybe with tyre wear as well, and I saw an opening, it was a clean, but a pretty forceful move. I’m glad to get the FHO Racing BMW up on the podium for the first race of the year.”

Glenn Irwin – P5

“It was a good first race for me back on the Ducati and it was most definitely a Glenn Irwinlearning race, but we were in the mix throughout and know what changes we need to make for tomorrow. The power delivery is one thing we’ll alter, particularly for turn three but if we’d have been offered two top fives in the first race, we’d have bitten your hand off. The F23 V4R looks to be a good step forward from the previous model and hats off to Tommy for putting it on the podium so with longer races tomorrow, I’m confident of improving upon today’s result.”

Andrew Irwin – P8

“The race was always going to be difficult starting from 14th after a tricky qualifying. Really that was my fault due to wrecking the bike early in FP2 which lost us valuable track time to set up the bike. But credit to the team, they did a great job transforming the bike from qualifying. In the race we moved forwards to finish 8th. After getting a good start, I had to fight through some of the riders in the group I was in and continue to go forwards. If 8th is a bad result, then I don’t think that’s too bad. Hopefully we can make another step in warm up and continue to move forward in the races.”

Peter Hickman – P11

“The weekend has probably been a little better than we expected really, Josh is obviously super-fast which is awesome and I’m super pleased for him and the team with his podium today. The shorter layout hasn’t been a great track for me over the years and it still isn’t! If we were at the big circuit I’d be right at the front. I think if it hadn’t been for the bike in front of me dropping fluid, I rolled out and was sat ninth at the time – he was eighth. I was faster and felt like maybe I could have gone with the front group, not the front three, but I could have latched on the back of the top eight for sure, but I rolled out of it and went back to 14th/15th, as I thought I was going to crash on the fluid. After a few laps I sorted my head out and came back through the pack a little to 11th. Eighth at one point was right in front of me; I had the pace to be in the top eight and I’m more than content with that, 11th isn’t the end of the world and I’m happy enough.”

Superbike Race One Results

Supersport / GP2 Sprint Race

Lee Johnston (Yamaha) held off Luke Stapleford (Kawasaki) to take the first Sprint race win of the year in a lights to flag victory.

From pole, the Ashcourt Racing rider took the lead at the start and was able to fend off numerous attempts to pass from his rival, to eventually take the win by 0.222secs.

Tom Booth-Amos (Kawasaki), who has been a constant frontrunner all weekend so far, took third, ahead of Australia’s Tom Toparis (Yamaha) as Jamie Perrin (Suzuki) was fifth.

Toparis buoyed by his fourth place form after such a long break from racing while countryman Ben Currie finished sixth on his Ducati debut just ahead of fellow ANZAC Damon Rees (Yamaha). Seth Crump’s (Yamaha) move from the tiddler ranks up to playing with the big boys is going well with Seth the 13th Supersport machine home in what is a huge and highly competitive field.

In the GP2 class, Joe Collier took the win as he crossed the line 12th overall. Second went to Cameron Fraser who finished 15th, just one spot ahead of Harry Rowlings.

Supersport / GP2 Sprint Race Results

Superstock 1000 Race One

Alex Olsen (Honda) took the first win of the season as he held off Franco Bourne (Honda) in the first Superstock battle of the weekend.

Olsen took the lead on lap eight and was able to build himself a comfortable buffer of around half a second which he managed to stretch to 0.825secs by the chequered flag.

Bourne was second as Billy McConnell (Honda)  fought through from the second row to finish on the podum.

Polesitter Dan Linfoot (Honda) had to settle for fourth, just ahead of Richard Kerr (Honda) in fifth.

Brayden Elliott (Kawasaki) finished 17th in a field that included a brace of NW200/TT stars. Alastair Seeley (BMW) finished 10th, Conor Cummins (Honda) 19th, John McGuinness (Honda) 22nd, James Hiller (Yamaha) 23rd, Nathan Harrison (Honda) 24th, Craig Neve (Honda) 25th.

John McGuinness – P22

“I’ve really enjoyed being here and working with the team, they’re a great bunch of lads! I enjoy riding my bike, Silverstone is not a difficult track but it’s difficult to be right at the front, but I’ll keep plugging away riding the bike and getting those laps in. The race was good, I think it was an honest result, even though you look at it on paper and think it’s not great, but it’s probably the toughest class in the series to be honest, but I kept trying. I was as fast at the end of the race as I was at the end which is great cause I’m 51 and I thought I might run out of puff! But I didn’t, which is good!”

David Johnson (Honda) and Michael Dunlop (Honda) both failed to finish. Davo had some technical problems six laps in.

Superstock 1000 Race One Results