BSB 2015 Oulton Park Image Gallery A – Images by Jon Jessop
BSB 2015 Oulton Park Image Gallery A – Images by Jon Jessop
Easton and Bridewell celebrate wins as Kiyonari and Byrne clash at Oulton Park
Tommy Bridewell and Stuart Easton shared the victories in a dramatic, incident-packed third round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship at Oulton Park in which Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne crashed out of contention in race two, handing the series lead to James Ellison.
Bridewell led the opening race at the Cheshire circuit, fending off the fierce challenge from Josh Brookes by 0.160s to celebrate the Tyco BMW team’s first victory. Byrne had completed the podium in the opening race as he briefly extended his lead in the standings.
The second race produced high drama as Ryuichi Kiyonari led the race, eager to make amends for a fifth place in the opening race for the Buildbase BMW team. Bridewell was pushing to take the advantage before he crashed his Tyco BMW, ending his hopes of a repeat winning performance.
Kiyonari and Byrne then had been battling intensely for the lead as the two title-winners diced furiously for the second victory of the day, but with just over two laps to go Kiyonari clipped the back of the PBM Kawasaki at Hizzys Chicane and the pair crashed out of contention.
The champions crashing out left a three-way scrap for the win between Stuart Easton, Ellison and Brookes. The Scottish PBM Kawasaki rider held off Ellison on the final dash to the finish to score his first victory since 2010 by 0.161s.
Michael Laverty enjoyed his best result of the season so far in fourth place on the Tyco BMW ahead of Honda Racing’s Jason O’Halloran and Howie Mainwaring on the Quattro Plant Bournemouth Kawasaki.
Tommy Bridewell (Tyco BMW) – R1: 1st, R2: Crash – “It makes a change to be at the front as normally I am sat behind these other guys and struggling to hold on! All credit to the Tyco BMW team as the bike was working phenomenally. I was watching my board, Josh’s board, Shakey’s and Stuart’s too, thinking right I know what is going on behind me. It was a matter of trying to save smooth and conserve the tyre, but that all went out the window so it was sideways and holding on for dear life really! I keep my feet on the floor but I think that is one of the strongest races [race one] I have ever run. I am disappointed with race two but it is one of those things.”
Stuart Easton (PBM Kawasaki) – R1: 4th, R2: 1st – “The win has been a while coming, and I was bit fortunate – there were five or six of us out there running at the same pace. I got lucky, but I will take it. I always go well here and I have won in the Supersport class here too, I really like the circuit and I have really enjoyed this weekend. We now need to build on today and keep pushing for Snetterton.”
Josh Brookes – R1: 2nd, R2: 3rd – “In the first race I bodged up the lights a bit at the start of the race. I don’t know why, but everything seemed to go into slow motion. I saw them go out, but I just didn’t go, it just didn’t happen and I had three riders around me. I just floated into the first corner and took an ideal line and it gave me the lead which was really lucky. I got away with it I guess! I was trying to force Tommy [Bridewell] to make a mistake but then I started to lose a bit of grip so I had to change my plan. I was trying to maintain the lap time and there wasn’t an opportunity to take an advantage. I was pleased to get third in race two; in general I made a few mistakes at the start and I thought I was going good but everyone was riding so well. Everyone at the front doesn’t normally make mistakes and if we do it is a crash, so I sat there at the back waiting to make a mistake or force a pass but it never showed. With Kiyo and Shakey going down it gifted me the third position and I will take it, it is too hard to get results in this championship so I am pleased with third.”
Jason O’Halloran continued his progress with seventh and fifth place finishes at Oulton Park.
Billy McConnell scored a 14th place in the opening race but improved to eighth place in the second bout.
Josh Waters, who qualified in 18th position, progressed through the pack to 12th in race one – setting the eighth-fastest lap of the race along the way – highlighting the progress the team has made with the set-up of his GSX-R1000.
After looking forward to battling at the front-end of the field in race two, a poor start left the double Australian Superbike Champion with work to do as he dropped outside of the points on the opening lap. However, he recovered to 12th with lap-times that would have seen him comfortably inside the top-10.
Team-mate Christian Iddon spent the weekend playing catch-up after breaking his leg at the previous round at Brands Hatch. The injury meant he couldn’t take part in the test at Oulton Park with the rest of the teams, and only one dry practice session saw the team still searching for the right set-up in time for qualifying.
However, he battled through from his 24th-place grid spot to finish in 17th place in race one before going two better in the second race and taking a hard-earned point away from a challenging weekend.
Josh Waters: “It’s been frustrating this weekend, especially race two. We moved up 10 positions on the grid only to move what felt like 10 back. The plan was to get away with the guys in front who we know we could lap with. But we’ve definitely moved forward with the bike and we’ll take the positives away with the times we put in this weekend. I’m looking forward to the Snetterton test now where we’ll keep working hard.”
Christian Iddon: “I think that’s the hardest point I’ve ever earned. We’ve been playing catch-up after missing the test and I really struggled with my leg in the first practice session. After that, the second session was wet and the third was half-and-half, so the first time I felt comfortable on the bike was in qualifying. In the races I struggled with arm-pump as I was over-compensating with them, and it’s a physically-demanding circuit. The team made some changes to the bike in race two to try and make it easier to ride. If we hadn’t scored a point this weekend I think I’d have cried. But now we have a break before Snetterton so I’ll keep working on getting the leg right and we’ll go from there.”
The Be Wiser Kawasaki team had a varied weekend, Chris Walker was again super consistent throughout the weekend scoring some solid Championship points, with an 11th in race one and ninth in race two. Danny Buchan was unfortunate to crash out of race one and was 17th in the second race.
Chris Walker – “I am fairly pleased with the weekend here at Oulton Park we still have a lot of changes to make and plenty of promise to move forwards. We were a little on the back foot here as most of the teams tested the week before but we are doing the two day test at Snetterton in a couple of weeks. The first race was pretty good but I was riding around on my own for most of it, we have made some good changes and the team are working really hard all the time to make strong improvements in each session. The second race was going well but about five laps in I had a malfunction with my electrics so the bike was doing things it wasn’t meant to be doing. I managed to re-group and ride around the problems but that at that point I’d lost positions and they had pulled too much of a gap for me to be able to do anything about it.”
Danny Buchan – “It was another really tough and frustrating weekend, everything was going so well in practice and qualifying and I felt really happy on the Be Wiser Kawasaki. It was a bit of carnage on the first lap of the race and I got pushed onto the grass, I lost my focus and sadly crashed out a couple of corners later. I struggled a little in the second race; I just wanted to bring the bike home in one piece. I am looking forward to testing at Snetterton and hopefully coming back stronger there. I want to get some consistent top ten results at the remaining rounds and I am just sorry to the team for the crash and want to give them a good result too.”
It had been a disappointing opening race for Milwaukee Yamaha’s Broc Parkes who was collected by another rider at the Hizzys Chicane, leaving him crashing out of contention, then in race two he had to try and battle through the order, feeling sore after his race one crash, to end in a disappointing 22nd place.
Broc Parkes – R1: Crash, R2: 22nd – “It’s not been a great day for me today. I got a good start to the first race but then got t-boned by another rider into Hizzys. He just hit me and then the bike was badly damaged which meant the boys had to fix it all up but then we had a few problems in the second race, but we need to check the data. As for me, my body has taken two beatings this weekend and both times I have been up in the air and landing on my shoulder and back. I felt sore in race two but I did my best – it has just been a disaster of a weekend. I want to look forward now to the test at Snetterton.”
The next round of the series will take place on June 19-21st on the Snetterton 300 circuit.
British Superbike 2015 – Round Three – Oulton Park – Race One
1 Thomas Bridewell Yamaha GBR 28’43.914
2 Joshua Brookes Yamaha AUS 0’00.160
3 Shane Byrne Ducati GBR 0’02.539
4 Stuart Easton Kawasaki GBR 0’03.742
5 Ryuichi Kiyonari Honda JPN 0’04.656
6 James Ellison Yamaha GBR 0’14.493
7 Jason O’Halloran Honda AUS 0’17.672
8 Michael Laverty PBM GBR 0’24.496
9 Howie Mainwaring Smart Kawasaki GBR 0’24.703
10 Richard Cooper BMW GBR 0’25.123
11 Chris Walker Honda GBR 0’27.959
12 Josh Waters Yamaha AUS 0’30.449
13 James Westmorland Triumph GBR 0’32.321
14 Billy Mcconnell Kawasaki AUS 0’33.184
15 Lee Jackson BMW GBR 0’33.750
British Superbike 2015 – Round Three – Oulton Park – Race Two
1 Stuart Easton Kawasaki GBR 28’46.890
2 James Ellison Yamaha GBR 0’00.161
3 Joshua Brookes Yamaha AUS 0’00.232
4 Michael Laverty PBM GBR 0’12.102
5 Jason O’Halloran Honda AUS 0’12.306
6 Howie Mainwaring Smart Kawasaki GBR 0’20.377
7 Richard Cooper BMW GBR 0’21.086
8 Billy Mcconnell Kawasaki AUS 0’21.547
9 Chris Walker Honda GBR 0’22.132
10 Lee Jackson BMW GBR 0’23.529
11 James Westmorland Triumph GBR 0’23.774
12 Josh Waters Yamaha AUS 0’24.372
13 Luke Mossey Kawasaki GBR 0’24.951
14 Martin Jessopp Honda GBR 0’25.115
15 Christian Iddon Suzuki GBR 0’25.436
