Third place Kyle Ryde “never had the pace to win the race” at Brands Hatch

Round five of the British Superbikes championship at Brands Hatch saw Bradley Ray once again position himself as the man to beat, with Kyle Ryde, who sits second in the championship one of several riders to give chase over the twenty laps of race one.

The Yamaha rider had a section of the track where he seemed to struggle more than the rest, around the Surtees area, where he fell while looking for improvements on Friday.

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The reigning champion was grateful for a podium finish to keep the points pressure on after a patchy race performance:

“Lucky to get third in some sort of ways. Never had the pace to win the race over the distance. At parts of the race I had the pace to catch Brad and pass him , but just a lot of moments and a lot of things that have not been going on this weekend happened in that race

Things to work on for tomorrow, but there was potential there. There was a few laps that I was catching Brad. It was just the slow laps was too slow.

So looking forward to tomorrow. I’ll do a bit of data work now, make sure the bike’s better for tomorrow.”

While the race may not have one totally to plan the #1 rider enjoyed some bu=ig battles to claim that rostrum spot, first with Scott Redding, then in the closing stages a renewed Christian Iddon closing in once again on his Nitrous Competitions OMG bike:

“It was nice to obviously ride with Scott the last couple of laps He was a bit faster than me, but I think the top three fastest riders come first, second and third today, so yeah, great race with everyone, great race with my friend ‘Iddo’ - managed to fend him off onto the last lap as well!”