Shane Byrne will head to the final round of the British Superbike Championship with a one point lead over Alex Lowes after an astonishing victory in race two at Silverstone. The Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki rider put obvious physical discomfort to the back of his mind to beat the Samsung Honda by 0.012s, overtaking in the final metres of the final lap.
Although Tommy Bridewell kept pace with the leading duo for much of the race, it would once again boil down to a head-to-head between the two title rivals and after Byrne had powered past on lap two, Lowes regained the advantage by outbraking the Londoner into Vale just before half distance. Byrne responded at Brooklands on lap nine, passing Lowes at the same place the youngster took victory from him in race one, but Lowes outdragged him into Stowe soon afterwards to edge ahead again.
On the final lap, Byrne swarmed all over the back of the Honda but as they rounded Luffield, it seemed that the youngster had ridden the perfect defensive race but Byrne wouldn’t give in and dived for the inside at Woodcote. With mere metres between the motorcycles and the finish line, Byrne was still in second but the momentum just about carried him to victory, pipping Lowes by the narrowest of margins.
Bridewell completed a tremendous day with a second podium in a row while James Ellison recovered from an extraordinary moment on lap six to finish fifth. The Milwaukee Yamaha stepped out of control at Stowe with Ellison being flipped completely out of the seat but the Lancaster rider somehow remounted before a late race charge saw him overtake both Tyco Suzukis. As a result, Josh Brookes and PJ Jacobsen finished fifth and sixth respectively ahead of Jon Kirkham and Matteo Baiocco with James Westmoreland and Jakub Smrz completing the top ten.
| 2013 MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship – 3 Races To Go | ||||||||
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| 1 |  Shane Byrne |
604 | 2 | Alex Lowes |
603 | 3 | James Ellison |
562 |
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 |
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| 4 |  Josh Brookes |
546 | 5 | J. Westmoreland |
534 | 6 |  Ryuichi Kiyonari |
522 |
| (Photo Credit: Jon Jessop, Honda, Tyco Suzuki, Motorsport Vision, Buildbase BMW) | ||||||||
