Josh Brookes took his first victory in nine races in wet conditions at Brands Hatch on Saturday, although it wasn’t enough to keep him in championship contention. The Australian led from start to finish as title rivals Shane Byrne and Alex Lowes fought behind for second with the youngster prevailing to take the championship lead.
Brookes has already shown his potential in the slippery conditions to take pole position earlier in the day and despite being beaten by Byrne off the start line, the Tyco Suzuki rider quickly powered past. The identity of the winner was in little doubt from there but the championship lead was in much greater doubt as Byrne and Lowes renewed hostilities.
Both riders were making unusual shapes on their motorcycles as the tyres scrambled for grip on the drying track but Lowes looked the stronger and so it proved five laps from home when the Samsung Honda rider dived through at Surtees. Byrne had nothing by way of response and settled for third but Lowes wasn’t giving up on a potential victory, taking large chunks out of Brookes’ lead. The chequered flag came just in time for the Australian though who held on by 0.968s. In the bigger picture, Lowes was the big winner with second place taking him three points clear of Byrne in the race for the title.
Behind the top three, Josh Waters rode his best race in British Superbikes to finish fourth ahead of PJ Jacobsen and Tommy Bridewell while Chris Walker took seventh ahead of James Westmoreland and the second Halsall Racing Kawasaki of Lee Costello.
2013 MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship – 2 Races To Go | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Alex Lowes | 623 | 2 | Shane Byrne | 620 | 3 | Josh Brookes | 571 |
4 | James Ellison | 562 | 5 | J. Westmoreland | 542 | 6 | Ryuichi Kiyonari | 522 |
(Photo Credit: Jon Jessop, Honda, Tyco Suzuki, Motorsport Vision, Buildbase BMW) |