Ryuichi Kiyonari is the new leader in the chase for the Bennetts British Superbike title – the HM Plant Honda rider enjoyed a dominant, front running double victory in the ninth round at Oulton Park, fully capitalising on a second race machine failure that sidelined the defending champion Gregorio Lavilla.

Karl Harris had claimed pole start, with the fastest ever two-wheeled lap of the Cheshire circuit, but it was his team-mate Kiyonari who made the perfect start, with Leon Haslam, aboard the Airwaves Ducati hot on the charge, and moving ahead on a second lap that saw Harris tip off at Brittens.

Kiyonari soon re-asserted himself and by the end of the fifth lap was back in front and dictating terms as behind him Haslam was coming under pressure from his team-mate Lavilla who had battled through a fast moving pack, taking both Michael Rutter and Tommy Hill. The two Ducati riders duelled fast and furiously and at half distance, Lavilla moved second, but Haslam bit back strongly to take the placing.

“It was not easy, but very important that I won the race,” said Kiyonari. “I had a strong start, and was aware of Leon straightaway and I knew that he would be quick around here.

“When I got him back, I knew that I had to up the pace so that he could not get me back again,” he added after taking his seasonal sixth win by 4.673secs from Haslam who admitted: “It’s frustrating having to settle for second again, but I was struggling to stay with Kiyo. We were not able to match our practice times and I had a few tyre problems over the last few laps.”

Lavilla took third, ahead of Shane Byrne, riding Rizla Suzuki; Jonathan Rea aboard the Red Bull Honda; and the Stobart Honda duo of Rutter and Michael Laverty; with Scott Smart, Billy McConnell and Craig Coxhell completing the top ten.

Next time out, and Kiyonari was swiftly away, but this time Harris was snapping at the exhausts of the leading Honda as they fought for the upper-hand and though Harris re-wrote the record books with a super-fast third lap, it was all in vain as Kiyonari responded next time around with an even faster lap in a time of 1m 35.436scs, 101.54mph.

The Japanese rider was on course for a second double of the season, his seventh victory of the campaign and his 21st since arriving in the British series, and he knew that it would be sufficient to put him ahead in the title stakes for the first time this season as he saw Lavilla touring back to the pits, his race ended by a clutch problem.

Kiyonari took the victory by 2.786secs from Harris. “I am very happy – the second race was harder, Karl pressed me hard, but there is a long way to go in the championship, but now I fly back to Japan to compete in the Suzuka Eight Hour race feeling very good.”

Harris finished three second ahead of Haslam, with Rea fourth ahead of Byrne, Tommy Hill, riding the Virgin Mobile Yamaha, Rutter, Hydrex Honda rider Glen Richards, Ben Wilson on the Vivaldi Suzuki, Gary Mason and Steve Plater who had taken a pair of eleventh places as he deputised for the injured Steve Plater on the second Rizla Suzuki.

Kiyonari now leads the title stakes 274-269 over Haslam, with Lavilla back in third place on 260 points.

Chris Martin took a winning double aboard the PR Branson Honda to extend his advantage in the British Superbike Cup standings on a day of disaster for the current holder, James Buckingham who sustained a broken right ankle in a first race crash.

Stobart Honda

Stobart Motorsport rider Michael Rutter added to his points tally by scoring a sixth and seventh place finish in round nine of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship held at a hot and sunny Oulton Park, Cheshire today.

Riding the VK and Vent Axia backed Honda Fireblade the 33 year old Midlander qualified on row two of the grid before following up a sixth place finish in the opening 17 lap race with a battling seventh place in leg two to end the day in eighth place in the Championship.

“For some reason, the bike didn’t feel quite right in the second race and I’m a bit disappointed as I’d hoped for a better result here. I was sixth in the first one but not near enough to make a race of it, but at least we’ve scored some more points.”

Meanwhile team mate Michael Laverty was hoping to be challenging for a podium position following last weekend’s impressive performance at Knockhill but after finishing seventh in the opening race the 25 year old Ulsterman saw his hopes ended in leg two when he crashed out at the Brittens Chicane. As a result Laverty lies in seventh in the Championship and commented:

“I just steadily improved all weekend. I was happy enough with seventh in the first one but thought I could have improved on that in the second one so I was disappointed to slide off. I clipped a kerb trying to pass Lavilla.”

Team owner Paul Bird left Oulton Park a disappointed man after once again leaving a British Superbike meeting without any silverware. “To say I’m disappointed is a massive understatement as we know that our bikes are competitive and are certainly fast enough. There’s only so long that I can put up with these lowly results and that time is rapidly approaching. We will be having a team meeting this week to decide where we go from here” said the Penrith businessman.

The next round of the Championship takes place on August 12th/13th at Croft, North Yorkshire.

Suzuki Report

Rizla Suzuki’s Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne took hard-earned fourth and fifth place finishes in today’s double-header ninth round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at a sun-drenched Oulton Park in Cheshire.

Byrne found it difficult to make the most of his fifth place grid position from the start in both races before fighting his way through to dice for the podium places. His early efforts to pass slower riders left him with just too much of a deficit to make up and while matching the leaders’ lap times he couldn’t catch them.

Steve Plater, standing in for the injured James Haydon, outperformed his qualifying position of 16th to take two well-deserved 11th places. He continued to gain confidence in his Rizla Suzuki through the course of the weekend as he tripled his Championship points total.
Honda’s Ryuichi Kiyonari won both races.

There is now a mini-break in the Championship before the action resumes at the 10th round at Croft in North Yorkshire on Sunday, August 13th.

Shane Byrne:
“I couldn’t believe the two starts I got. Normally I get off the line really well but it just didn’t happen today. After that I was maxed-out trying to catch the riders in front.

“In the second race I was going for fourth and was braking that hard I nearly fell off the bike. I recovered and stayed on and it shows just how hard I was trying. I’ll be keeping that effort going for the rest of the year and am looking forward to the next round already.”

Steve Plater:
“As the weekend progressed I learnt more about the Rizla Suzuki and started to gel with it. It’s a fantastic race bike and I’ve really enjoyed riding it.

“I was a little tired during the races and that is down to being race rusty after seven weeks off the bike recovering from injury. It’s three weeks before the next round and if James isn’t able to race, and I get a chance to ride again for Rizla Suzuki, then I will be both fitter and wiser.”

Robert Wicks - Team Manager:
“The pace at the front has been of an extremely high standard all weekend. With the knowledge we had from our last outing at Oulton Park and the progress made at Knockhill a week ago, we had high hopes for the weekend.

“We expected more from Shane but despite improving his lap times and racing hard, the competition was too fierce and he came away with the best he could achieve on the day. That said, he’s the sort of rider that will rise to the challenge and we can expect him to be more determined that ever at Croft in three weeks time.

“Steve put in a decent performance at a very fast and competitive race meeting. He kept on improving, rode wisely, and, given his lack of time on the Rizla Suzuki, acquitted himself well. Our thanks go to Steve for standing in at short notice for the team. We will review James Haydon’s fitness level and make a decision on who will be the team’s second rider at Croft shortly.”

Brendan Roberts

Young Australian Brendan Roberts once again dominated proceedings at the weekend, 21st - 23rd July at Oulton Park. Roberts took his fifth race win of the season in the ultra competitive National Superstock Championship. The 21-year-old not only took the race win but in doing so he also broke the lap record and set Pole Position for the race, his first this season.

It was a perfect weekend for the likeable Aussie as he extended his lead in the Championship to 71-points from his nearest rival Ian Hutchinson. He took his third race win on the trot in glorious weather conditions in front of a bumper crowd who had turned out for the event at the picturesque 2.7-mile circuit.

Roberts was unable to take advantage of his pole position in the race and ended up in third place into the first corner behind Ian Hutchinson and Tristan Palmer. Running in hot at Shell corner saw him drop another place to Marshall Neill. As the pack settled into a rhythm it was not long before Roberts was manoeuvring himself through the pack and was soon back at the front by lap three.

As the 15-lap race progressed Roberts began to pull a healthy gap between him and second place man Hutchinson. By lap ten this was a 2.3-second lead, an incident at Island Bend forced the safety car out on circuit and it was soon set to be a three-lap dash to the chequered flag. As the car pulled in Roberts once again got his head down and managed to gain an outstanding 1.9 second advantage on his first flying lap, then on the penultimate lap his relentless pace saw him set a new lap record as he confidently took his fifth win of the season.

An elated Roberts commented " What an awesome feeling, I knew I didn’t need to take risks out there today but it all seemed so easy. When the safety car came out I got a little nervous as I had relaxed just enough and I wasn’t sure if my tyres would handle the pace needed to keep the pack behind me, but when it was time I was focused on what I had to do and concentrated on making no mistakes, and to top it off with a new lap record right at the end was mega! "

Roberts will next be out on track at the World Superbike Round at Brands Hatch, 4th - 6th August, competing in the European Superstock Championship.

Paul Young

Problems. Problems, problems: “Thanks to a series of problems, the weekend didn’t’ meet required the specifications! But, I guess that’s the way the racing cookie crumbles. We had a serious problem with the number one bike which really left us on the back-foot all weekend.”

Qualifying: “During the first session on Friday the cam cover went on the number one bike and I was black flagged, missing the first session. The spare bike wasn’t ready to go. In the second session we got the spare bike going, but it wasn’t going to my liking with front-end problems. On Saturday night we managed to get the engine out of the number one bike and fixed it. In qualifying it felt good and I did some good times on a race tyre – I was more than one second quicker than I was in the Oulton race earlier this year. I was 0.4 seconds off a front row start so I went for it and then washed the front out and dumped the bike at turn one. I was going for glory! Wish I hadn’t now, but I could see a front-row start. We didn’t have time to sort the number one bike out for second qualifying, so I used the second bike. We swopped forks with the No.1 bike and it felt good. We also changed the throttle grip as we had some problems with that. I thought everything was going to be hunky-dory for the race.”

The Race: “I got a pretty good start and settled around 11th and 10th, battling with Jay Vincent and we were in touch with the top 10. By the second lap when people settle down and I try to make my moves I found I was rushing into corners as the throttle stuck open! I nearly ran off the track at Lodge and Island Bend. I’d be hard on the brakes but the throttle would be staying on. I can only think that when bike was down it had got lot grit in the throttle mechanism, hence it would sometimes stick on. I worked hard to bring it home in 14th place. I’m happy with my times at the start, though. Again we were about one second quicker than the start of year, but we had some big moments to deal with, just to bring it home.”

Coming events: “I’m in a tizz at the moment, thanks to the impending Suzuka Eight-Hour. I’m packing and re-packing my bags in a bid to appease RyanAir’s baggage requirements. I’m off to meet my Swedish team who are running 4th in the World Endurance Championship at the moment. I’m looking forward to it as I love Suzuka. It has some blindingly fast corners and it’s a long track. If we’re reliable and get a good run, anything could happen, but a top 10 is the main aim, thanks to so many big Japanese teams out there. Back in 2003 I was running in 4th in the last hour before we had a 10-minute pit stop! That’s how unpredictable it can be there!”