Kyle Ryde edged closer to a third consecutive British Superbike Championship title in Race One at Donington Park by claiming his 15 th victory of the season.
After dropping as low as fifth at one stage on the opening lap, Ryde began cutting his way through the leading pack. Ryde and title rival Scott Redding battled hard on the third lap, first at the Foggy Esses and then again at the Melbourne Loop.
By lap seven Ryde, who started from pole , was all over the back of race leader Ryan Vickers, first attempting an audacious move down the side of Craner Curves, before surprising the Honda man again with a move down the inside at Schwantz.
Ryde controlled proceedings from then on, setting fastest laps of the race on lap 15 and lap 16 before taking the chequered flag with an advantage of 1.260s over Vickers.
The reigning champion is now 75 points clear of Redding, who finished fourth, with five races remaining this year. Ryde has won 15 of the 28 races held this season and has been on the podium 27 times. Today’s victory was Ryde’s 13 th at his home circuit, and his 39 th career victory in the Superbike class.
Bradley Ray completed the podium for McAMS Yamaha , whilst Max Cook completed the top five behind Redding.
Leon Haslam battled his way through from 15 th on the grid to finish sixth ahead of Danny Kent and Storm Stacey. Joe Talbot and Christian Iddon completed the top 10.
Lee Jackson came home in 11 th ahead of DAO Racing Honda teammate Josh Brookes, with the latter coming out on top in an all-Australian duel with Jason O’Halloran. Rhys Irwin and Andrew Irwin claimed the final two points available in the race.
Ilya Mikhalchik returned to the pits at the end of the warm up lap, whilst Fraser Rogers retired with a technical issue on the opening lap.
Glenn Irwin also returned to pit-lane at the end of the fourth lap to retire his Nitrous Coin Nitrous Competitions Racing Ducati V4 R . Eugene McManus also returned to pit-lane, however he was able to re-join the race.
Rory Skinner’s race came to a premature end on lap 14 with smoke coming from the exhaust of his Cheshire Mouldings Yamaha R1 . The Scot was running in in sixth when the issue began.
Sunday’s BSB races at Donington Park are scheduled to take place at 13:20 and 16:15.
Sports Reporter - Motorcycle racing enthusiast Josh joined the MCN team in 2019. He studied Sports Journalism at the University of Sunderland, leaving with a 2:1 and a Gold Standard Diploma in Journalism from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). Introduced to the world of motorcycle racing by his dad as a youngster, Josh became a fan of MotoGP, WorldSBK and BSB. Like many, Josh became a huge Valentino Rossi supporter…little did he know that years later he would ask a question or two to the man himself.
Sports Reporter and fan of all things motorsport