Shane Byrne and Karl Harris have shrugged off their collision in the first race of the weekend at
Oulton Park after stewards ruled the incident was a racing one.
Byrne had been tailing Harris in the battle for fourth place when the Yamaha rider ran slightly wide and Byrne attempted to capitalise by diving up the inside.
However, with the camber allowing Harris to cut back onto his line, he found Byrne was already there and when the pair leaned on one another, Harris undersided off the circuit and into retirement.
Adding to Harris' dismal luck this season, Byrne, who went on to finish in third place, was sorry about the collision, but admits he was surprised by the backlash he received when he returned to the pit lane.
“It didn't look like anything from my perspective,” he told
Crash.net Radio. “I didn't realise until I got back that there had been such animosity about the manoeuvre.
“Both Leon Haslam and Karl went wide into the hairpin and I went up the inside. I caught my shoulder on Karl's handlebars, which means I must have had a wheel in front. I felt terrible he went down though because Karl has had such bad luck this year and I didn't want to be the person to contribute to it.
“It was only when I got back to the podium area that I realised there was a problem. I am really sorry, but I think it has been sorted.”
With Byrne picking him up on the warm down lap, Harris admits he was bitterly disappointed not to finish once again.
“I'm almost speechless. What a dramatic turn around to my weekend. Yet again I seem to be faced with some of the worst luck out there. Race 1 saw Shakey put in a very ambitious move, which resulted in me falling off, luckily I was unhurt but nevertheless, I didn't get to prove my worth.”
