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Starting from his first pole earned from qualifying, the pressure was on 20-year-old Bradley Ray to convert it to a third race win of the season.
It was a good start from the Buildbase Suzuki rider, and he got into Paddock Hill for the first time in the lead, with Byrne and Haslam in tow, whilst Michael Laverty maintained his grid position of fourth.

But already the race had started to go away from James Ellison. By the end of lap one he had dropped to eleventh. Perhaps a bad start? If so, he should have started to pull himself through the pack immediately, but instead he continued to fall backwards, and by the end was out of the points, blaming the quality of his Pirelli rear tyre for the issues, further worsening the standing of the Italian marque in the paddock after a concerning opening round in Donington. These BSB tyre issues go hand in hand with the issues they have suffered with their World Superbike tyres, and the quality control there. It is essential for Pirelli to deal with these issues because, as has been discussed with Michelin in MotoGP, it is only a matter of time before an anomalous tyre decides the championship.

Back to the race, and Leon Haslam had been dropped by the leading two, and had fallen back to Jason O’Halloran and Christian Iddon behind, who in turn had passed Michael Laverty and streaked away. After a few laps, Haslam made a mistake which allowed O’Halloran past, and it seemed the Australian might be able to escape with the final podium position; the level of threat to Jason’s third place being presumably determined by the speed of Iddon passing the apparently helpless Haslam.

But that was not the case, and Haslam got the magnets out on the JG Speedfit Kawasaki, and stuck with the pace set by O’Halloran, whilst maintaining fourth position ahead of Christian Iddon.

But it was still Bradley Ray leading Shane Byrne out front, and whilst there was a fair amount of change in the order behind, that of the leading pair was left unchanged until a mistake by Brad Ray on lap 29 of 30, when he ran very wide on the entry to Paddock Hill Bend. At the time it looked as though Byrne was becoming ready to make a pass anyway, but Ray but it beyond doubt.

After the race, Ray explained that he decided to let Byrne go after the mistake, and safely take the points for second place. Duly, Byrne took his first win of the season, and beating Brad Ray in a battle, especially after studying the Suzuki, will have eased any small doubts in Byrne’s mind about beating the youngster, and answered some questions about where the GSXR-1000 is strong and where it has weak points compared to the Ducati.
Perhaps it is worth considering that the two riders who fought at the front today might be the ones who fight for the championship until the end, maybe today was a sign of things to come.

Jason O’Halloran managed to hold Haslam off until the end, and so the Aussie took his first podium of the season, and an important one for the team after Dan Linfoot’s neck injury on Friday which ruled him out of the rest of the weekend. On that point, it was good to see Dan speaking to the Eurosport guys at the end of the race; it’s good to know he’s out of hospital and on the mend.

Christian Iddon seemed to be held up by back markers, a common thing at Brands Indy thanks to the shortness of the layout. Maybe he just lost the time in a more normal way, maybe a tyre drop, but either way the time he lost in the last five or so laps cost him a chance to pass Haslam for fourth and have a shot at the final shot at the podium, and so it was fifth for the ex-supermoto champion.

Jake Dixon took a while to get past Michael Laverty in the first half of the race, and that limited heavily his potential for the race, and could only manage sixth in the end. Glenn Irwin also managed to come through on Laverty, and finished seventh in the end, to continue his promising start to the season.

That left Laverty in eighth, ahead of Bridewell and Hickman who rounded out the top ten. It was promising to see Bridewell up there, considering his tricky preseason, and the assumption that the Halsall Suzuki will improve as the season goes on.

Tarran Mackenzie took eleventh place, which he might be disappointed with after qualifying ninth yesterday, but he showed good pace at the end of the race to come back through from fourteenth, and that is a good sign for the future. Danny Buchan was unable to repeat his race two heroics from two weeks ago, and finished twelfth on the FS-3 Kawasaki. Josh Brookes continued his dismal start to the season with a thirteenth place, but there is still the assumption that the Aussie will eventually find the sweet spot once more with the Yamaha, but there is only so long he can continue to finish outside the top ten before the Showdown becomes out of reach.

Jakub Smrz finished fourteenth whilst the double winner at Brands Indy from last year, in stark contrast to his decent pace in Donington, was only fifteenth, and that was Luke Mossey – a lot of work for Mossey to do before race two.
Thanks to his tyre issues, James Ellison was only able to manage 16th, ahead of Taylor Mackenzie, Mason Law, Gino Rea, Sylvain Barrier, Carl Phillips and Shaun Winfield. The only retirements were Kyle Ryde, who broke down on the first of the warm-up laps, and Richard Cooper who crashed at Graham Hill Bend.

So, an important win for Shane Byrne after a race-long dual with Bradley Ray set up the second BSB race sublimely, where we wait to see whether someone can intervene in the two home riders’ private battle.

Image curtesy of ducati.com

Bradley Ray took pole position at Brands Hatch for Buildbase Suzuki, with a stunning 44.997 second lap. It is the perfect way for Ray to continue after his debut double in Donington Park two weeks ago. The race tomorrow could be a different story, however, as almost all riders will be looking to run the soft compound Pirelli P Zero rear tyre, and Ray steamed to his success in Donington on a hard rear. Of course, we will not find out whether Ray will suffer with the soft rear until tomorrow, but for now it is safe to say that his performance in qualifying today was superb, and the pole position well deserved.

Shane Byrne lines up second for tomorrow’s first race. As he eluded in his post-qualifying interviews, it will be crucial for Shakey to avoid a repeat of his race one start, especially with overtaking points at a premium at the 1.2-mile Indy circuit at Brands. It was an uneventful session for the reigning champion, but in the final stages of Q3 he seemed to lack the rear grip to be able to mount a challenge for pole position.

A final lap from James Ellison sprung the number 11 Anvil Hire Tag Racing Yamaha onto the back of the front row for Sunday’s opening race, and he will be aiming to claim the win he should have had in race one last season before a crash at Druids. But once again today, Ellison claims the title of top Yamaha, one he will no doubt smugly enjoy after the doubts cast over his potential for this season thanks to moving to a privateer Yamaha team from the factory supported team.

Michael Laverty made a welcome return to the top positions as he claimed fourth in the Datatag Qualifying session today. There was a lot of questioning about whether Laverty deserved another shot in the Tyco BMW team this year, and so it is good to see him silence the critics with this performance, and hopefully for him he can make a good race tomorrow, which would build on the solid start to the season he had in Donington.

Leon Haslam is fifth for tomorrow, and is one who might be expected to struggle if he cannot make the soft tyre go the distance. This has been the case in the past two seasons, with Haslam regularly preferring the harder option Pirelli rear tyre for the race. Unfortunately for Haslam, the harder compound does not seem to be an option at the moment because the 2018 version has no grip. It seems Leon has a choice: suffer for grip all race long on a hard rear, or struggle to make a soft rear last the full thirty laps.

Tommy Bridewell will be the second Suzuki on the grid for race one tomorrow after he set the sixth fastest time in Q3 for Halsall Suzuki. This presents a good opportunity for Bridewell to make up for a difficult weekend in Donington.

Jake Dixon will line up seventh tomorrow and, as Bridewell, is looking to recover from a difficult opening round. Jason O’Halloran was eighth fastest in Q3, but was lucky to get out at all after a fall at Druids at the end of Q2 having already set a time sufficient for Q3 qualification. Nonetheless, the Honda Racing mechanics did a fantastic job to put the #22 CBR1000RR back together so that the Australian could get out with enough time to set a lap time. The pressure is on O’Halloran tomorrow – with teammate Linfoot out thanks to a cracked C6 vertebra all the team’s hopes lie with Jason. Tarran Mackenzie was extremely impressive in qualifying, and finally took ninth place for tomorrow’s first race grid.

Christian Iddon will be at the head of row four tomorrow, sharing it with Richard Cooper and Glenn Irwin. Meanwhile, row five consists of Luke Mossey’s Kawasaki, Peter Hickman’s BMW and the S1000RR of Jakub Smrz, whilst Taylor Mackenzie heads up row six from Danny Buchan and Kyle Ryde. Gino Rea was only 19th, but still ahead of Josh Brookes who had a nightmarish qualifying, and Mason law was 21st. 22nd went to Sylvain Barrier, whilst Shaun Winfield took 23rd from Carl Phillips who rounds out the grid for race one at Brands Hatch Indy.

Images curtesy of suzuki-racing.com

Having just about thawed out from Donington Park two weeks ago for the opening round of the 2018 British Superbike Championship, the paddock now heads to Kent, and the Brands Hatch circuit, specifically the Indy layout, for round two.

After a stunning double at Donington, Bradley Ray will be hoping to continue his stunning start to the season, and keep up his 100% podium record on a circuit which represents something more like home territory for the championship leader than the Midlands. Last season, in his rookie year, Ray managed to take a twelfth place in race one and an eighth in race two, meaning the shortest track on the calendar yielded one of Ray’s best weekends until his podium in Oulton Park in late September. Naturally, for a rider in just his second season in BSB, there is caution regarding his championship chances, but if the twenty-year-old leaves Brands this weekend with a couple more podiums then surely there will be no doubt?

But perhaps Ray does not feature among the main favourites for this weekend. For sure, the expectation is that he will once more fight in the front group, and the circuit’s nature should lend itself to the Suzuki’s “1000cc supersport” characteristic that most people seem to be claiming it has. But over the past years, many riders have shown themselves to be particularly dominant at the short Brands layout.

One of those is of course Shane Byrne. The home favourite is accustomed to winning at Brands Hatch but perhaps not so much on the Indy circuit, especially in the last few years, but the reigning champion left Donington Park in good form, despite missing the podium in the second race. The first race was a different story for the PBM Ducati rider, who made an awful start, but closed down a fairly large gap in the last five laps or so to arrive on the back of the leading duo of James Ellison and Brad Ray, and after passing Ellison in the Melbourne Hairpin on the final lap, he was nearly able to take the win away from Ray in Goddard’s, but thought better of it. For certain, the pace shown by Byrne in the final phases of race one should have the rest of the field concerned.

Another rider who has proven handy at the original layout of Brands Hatch is James Ellison. The Kendal rider could have had a double win last season, but a crash in race one that caused damage which was beyond repair for race two meant he went home pointless. He was, however, able to complete the double back in 2015 on the JG Speedfit Kawasaki. After a crash in race two in Donington, a big points haul would help Ellison’s Showdown hopes a lot, especially if other rider who are expected to challenge for the Showdown, and the title, struggle once more this weekend.

One of the riders in question is Leon Haslam, who had tyre woes in both races two weeks ago. In race one, Haslam could only manage ninth thanks to tyre issues relating to the 2018 hard rear tyre. In race two, he suffered similar problems, and insisted that it was only the narrowness of the racing line that allowed him to get onto the podium in the mixed conditions, as it was difficult for riders to pass. These issues are particularly worrying for Leon, as almost every weekend he favours the harder rear tyre as he struggles to make the soft last. The problem in Donington was that some riders, like the double winner Brad Ray, had 2017 spec hard rears, which allowed them to make a consistent pace all race long. Meanwhile Haslam on the 2018 spec tyre lapped two or three seconds off the times he was able to do in testing with the 2017 tyre. On paper, the tyres are the same, meaning there is likely a problem with the manufacturing process on the 2018 tyre. If this is not sorted for this weekend’s tyres, Haslam could be one rider who struggles the most when it comes to Sunday.

Luke Mossey also had similar issues to those of Haslam in Donington, and will likely suffer again this weekend if the situation is not resolved. But the positive for Mossey is that he scored his first win, and first double in this round last season, meaning he should go to Brands in high hopes of claiming his first podium, and important points in the race for the showdown.

Josh Brookes is another rider who had a disappointing round in Donington. The Australian could only manage twelfth in race one thanks to rear vibration problems, and despite a night to try and fix the issues he could only manage one place better in race two. This leaves Brookes in perhaps the most vulnerable position of all the Showdown favourites, and he kind of needs a response this weekend to rediscover some confidence if nothing else. Of course, panic stations have not yet been manned in the McAMS Yamaha squad, who will be safe in the notion that Brookes’ 2015 campaign did not get off to a stunning start, but the Aussie went on to dominate the second half of that season and took the championship as a result. And, of course, last season Shane Byrne failed to even make the start in either of the Donington races thanks to a warm up crash, and crashed out of one of the Brands Indy races, but still went on to win the title. Brookes’ season did not begin as he would have likes two weeks ago, but all of that could be forgotten with a pair of good results this weekend.

Dan Linfoot made a brave call in race two at the season opener to run an intermediate front, when most of the grid went with a slick, and it worked for him to put him third, and on the podium at the chequered flag. This was enough for Dan to leave Donington in third place overall, thanks also to a fourth place he registered in race one. It has been a while since Linfoot started a season so well, and considering the way he ended last year, this could be ominous for the competition, and the Honda Racing rider will hope to continue that into this weekend.

On the other hand, Jason O’Halloran will be looking to right the wrongs of the Donington Park round this weekend, as the Aussie could only manage a seventh in race one and a ninth in race two. In a similar situation is Jake Dixon, who took an eleventh in race one two weeks ago, and only a twelfth in the second outing. Other riders looking to bounce back from difficult season openers include Peter Hickman who only managed an eighth and a penultimate lap crash; Chrstian Iddon who took a fourteenth and a sixth; Michael Laverty who claimed a pair of tenth places; and Richard Cooper, a sixteenth and a thirteenth whilst his teammate took the double.

Of course, there are plenty of other riders who could find themselves in contention this weekend, such as Glenn Irwin, who had a solid start to the season with a sixth and a seventh despite a fractured neck (although, that never held him back last season), Gino Rea, Danny Buchan, who beat Shane Byrne to fourth at the last round, and Tommy Bridewell.

The good thing about Brands Indy is that the shortness of the track allows for some incredibly tight times, and this can lead to very tight racing, where one mistake can make the difference between being on the podium and being outside the top eight, and this means that we should be in for a scintillating pair of races this Sunday.

images curtsey of suzuki-racing.com