Byrne duly punished Crutchlow for not making his move on Sykes with a fine pass at the Shell Oil Hairpin, the championship leader finding an Airwaves Ducati shaped gap on the inside of the corner as he sneaked through. However, while Byrne set about lining up Sykes for a final corner lunge, Crutchlow was back past into second when he drafted through on the run down to Hislop Chicane.
Their time consuming ‘switch-around' proved to be the break Sykes needed to put a small buffer beaten himself and Crutchlow as he rounded Deer Leap for the last time to record Rizla Suzuki's first double victory since John Reynolds did so at the same circuit four years ago.
Crutchlow was second, although will no doubt still be reeling from the fall he suffered in the first race whilst challenging for victory. Although he recovered to sixth, it means he has lost slightly more ground to Byrne, who in turn maintained his fine run of podium finishes with a pair of third places.
Haslam recorded his second fourth place finish of the day, while Ellison completed his best weekend of the season with fifth.
Although slightly ignored by the fight at the front, Simon Andrews enjoyed another strong race, the Lloyds Jentin Yamaha racer fighting back gamely after falling as low as 11th with a misjudged move on Michael Rutter early in the race.
Michael Laverty enjoyed a better outing this afternoon on the way to seventh, the Relentless Suzuki rider holding off the attentions of Karl Harris, who couldn't progress further than ninth after a bad start. The Yamaha rider was passed by the Hawk Kawasaki of Scott Smart late in race too, while Billy McConnell on the similar MSS Discovery machine rounded out the top ten.
In the Daily Star Cup, John Laverty produced his second win of the weekend, the Buildbase Ducati rider finishing 13th overall and holding off rival Gary Mason by just two tenths of a second.
