Shane Byrne sets Brands Hatch pace
Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne fired the opening shots in the “War for Four” MCE Insurance British Superbikes titles against Ryuichi Kiyonari by setting the pace in free practice ahead of this weekend’s triple-header finale at Brands Hatch.
Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s Byrne goes into the first race on Saturday afternoon with a twelve point advantage over Kiyonari. The Kent racer edged out his Japanese rival by half a second in the dry afternoon free practice session.
Byrne said: “We have three races to win to take the title and a place in history as the first rider to win four titles. There is one part of me says go out and enjoy them, the other says just stay ahead of Kiyonari in all of them. He is fast and a great competitor to ride against, but I don’t concentrate my mind on any other rider, the only person that I have to beat is myself.”
Kiyonari, riding the Buildbase BMW, had shown all-round riding skills, running fourth fastest in the damp of the morning. Howie Mainwaring on the Quattro Plant Kawasaki set the pace in the opening session.
Kiyonari said: “The morning wasn’t so good with the conditions and maybe I tried too hard in the afternoon and that is why we didn’t improve with every lap, I was pushing too hard and making mistakes but then I relaxed and we improved our lap time again. The feeling was better with the bike than before so we have our best setting and we will keep pushing. I was a bit angry and disappointed because I want to be fastest, but everyone is so close in the top ten. I love this track and I have confidence for the first race.”
Byrne and Kiyonari were split at the top of the free practice leaderboard by James Ellison riding the Lloyds British GBmoto Kawasaki and Aussie Josh Brookes on the Milwaukee Yamaha who needs strong results to maintain his third place in the title stakes ahead of his team-mate Tommy Bridewell.
Brookes said: “This morning I looked at the track and watched other people going round. It already appeared to have some dry patches so I thought well there’s no point going out doing three or four laps and then only to have to go out on slicks anyway and go quicker. So, I just waited and then went out on slicks to have a look and it was too wet to ride on them so I sort of waited longer and then really just ran out of time. Because of the cool temperatures the track did not dry so we didn’t really lose anything so I was not too bothered about that.
“This afternoon wasn’t too bad, we just ran with a fairly common setup for the bike and what we usually use, it went fairly well. I’ve already matched my time in qualifying from last time I was here. I used just one set of tyres the whole run and the last lap there was my best and we just changed a little tweak on the bike. We’ve got a couple of things we want to try tomorrow, one’s a gear pattern. Out the back near Hawthorns I was running through in fourth gear where I think there’s room to definitely go back an extra gear and use third and also a line change into Graham Hill Bend. That will hopefully improve the lap time and apart from that just eek my way through the weekend.”
Bridewell said: “Today’s been alright to be honest. Obviously this morning the conditions were bad so we didn’t get many laps in, so yeah, it was alright, had feeling on the bike. Then, in FP2, I felt really good on the bike, the bike was working really well. The position doesn’t really show our true position to be fair but the bike was working really good and we feel really happy. We’re riding well, well within ourselves, to be quite close in the times. Looking forward to tomorrow now and getting the first race out of the way.”
