Bradley Ray pipped Max Cook in the British Superbike Championship pre-qualifying session at Oulton Park to get his weekend off to a positive start.
The 2022 champion, a five-time race winner at Oulton Park, posted a 1:33.113 onboard his McAMS Yamaha R1, which was enough to beat Cook by a mere 0.016s.
In a seriously competitive session, which ended with the top 15 being covered by just 1.099s, Storm Stacey was only 0.039s further back in third onboard the Bathams AJN Racing Ducati .
Ryan Vickers’ race weekend began brightly after he finished fourth for Honda Racing UK, with title contender Scott Redding completely the top five on the Hager PBM Ducati.
Rookie Joe Talbot continued to impress in sixth spot, ending his day ahead of Leon Haslam’s Moto Rapido Racing Ducati.
In a rare turn of events, reigning champion Kyle Ryde suffered a small crash at Brittens early in the session. He was, however, able to jump back on his bike immediately and recovered to the Nitrous Coin Nitrous Competitions Racing Ducati garage.
It left Ryde with just a couple of minutes at the end of the session to cement his position inside the automatic Q2 positions, with the championship leader holding the 12 th and final spot as he returned to the circuit.
Ryde, who smashed the existing lap record earlier in the day with a 1:32.732, posted a lap-time of 1:33.506 to finish the pre-qualifying session in eighth.
Jason O’Halloran and Rory Skinner completed the top 10, with Ilya Mikhalchik and Josh Brookes securing the final two automatic Q2 qualifying spots. Brookes crashed at Shell in the closing moments of the session.
Brookes’ DAO Racing Honda teammate Lee Jackson will have to go through Q1 on Saturday after finishing 0.140s behind the Aussie. Christian Iddon ended his day in 14 th after reecovering from a crash at Lodge in the opening minutes of the session.
Danny Kent and Fraser Rogers were 15 th and 16 th respectively ahead of Rhys Irwin, whilst the returning Charlie Nesbitt ended his day in 18 th . Nesbitt didn’t race at Brands Hatch after aggravating an existing hand injury (a fractured second metacarpal in his right hand) in an FP1 crash.
Elsewhere, Joe Sheldon-Shaw ended his first day back in the BSB class in 22 nd . Sheldon-Shaw is standing-in for Luke Hedger at Whitecliffe CDH Racing Honda after the latter injured himself at work.
Meanwhile, Dan Brooks was 23 rd on his first day as a BSB rider. Brooks is making his debut at Oulton Park as a replacement for Eugene McManus at MasterMac Honda. McManus is continuing to recover from the injuries he sustained in the huge crash on the run into Paddock Hill Bend at Brands Hatch.
Glenn Irwin suffered a frustrating day onboard his Ducati V4 R. The Northern Irishman ended FP1 in 17 th before missing the entire FP2 session as the team performed an engine change. The complications followed Irwin into the pre-qualifying session, where he was unable to set a competitive lap time.
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.
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