Shane Byrne was full of praise for the Airwaves Ducati team after securing a double win at
Oulton Park that allows him to strengthen his early season advantage in the Bennetts British Superbike Championship.
Byrne went into the weekend level on points with fellow
Thruxton winner Cal Crutchlow but will now head to
Brands Hatch for the rescheduled 'season-opener' having opened up a handy 39 point lead at the top of the championship standings on the back of his Cheshire double.
Having qualified in second place on the grid behind Crutchlow, Byrne slipped back to fourth place at the start but was soon starting to make up places as he took third from Leon Haslam on the second lap. Having climbed ahead of Tom Sykes into second place, Byrne then took the lead when Crutchlow fell at Lodge before coming under increasing pressure from Haslam for the win in the closing laps as his tyres started to drop off dramatically.
Although he briefly lost the lead on the final lap, Byrne quickly rebounded to retake to the lead and secure his second win of the campaign.
"In the first race, they were just difficult conditions full stop," he told
Crash.net afterwards. "I don't think there was an ideal tyre for the conditions at any time but the team made a good choice for me. I couldn't have done anymore [to keep Haslam behind] to be honest.
"Everyone's tyres were ruined and it was a case of riding round and if he attacked me, I was going to go back at him no matter where it was. I didn't want to lead for twelve laps and then lose it on the last one as I'd have been fuming. It was a long hard race, and the final seven were probably the hardest I've had for a long time."
Byrne's hopes of doubling up looked to have taken a blow when he made an error at Britten's in the early stages of race two, touching the white line and plummeting out of the top ten as a result as he was forced to straight-line the chicane.
