Kyle Ryde a viewer “hoping that Scott beat Brad” in first Brands Hatch Showdown race

Kyle Ryde got a great start and a stint out front, but was fighting for grip in the closing stages in the opening race of the Brands Hatch British Superbike finale, with Scott Redding doing him a favour by snatching the win, limiting the damage to his championship lead.

The Nitrous Competitions Yamaha rider had lead the race after, first out of the first corner, and then again after a series of fast laps. All three riders at the front were careful to pass, but still did so when they felt safe to do so, bringing some sensible but exciting laps, as the defending champion explained post-race:

“We rode a very sensible race, between both of us really, well all three of us.

It was fast enough to obviously create a gap to everybody else, but we definitely had a few attempts left ‘cause obviously Brad set the fastest lap on the last lap and I did a few in the middle of the race, but you can’t go that speed really for twenty laps.

The first ten laps were, I wouldn't say steady, but it was comfortable enough for us both, or Scott, to save a bit of tyre, and just have a bit of a race at the end really.

So, in theory it was really only a six or seven lap race.”

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Those last few laps saw Ryde, who was clear of Rory Skinner who could not match their pace in fourth, ease of knowing he had space to manage his bike and tyres, instead of push and crash out. That left him a viewer, hoping that Redding would come out on top to help his title hopes:

“For me, the last six, seven laps was obviously quite difficult. Once Scott come past with three laps to go, I thought I got my head down, I might pull away from Brad a little bit. I had a little bit of a dig and the Brad got me into Stirlings - then he started pulling away from me and found second wind. So the last two laps was just me watching those two hoping that Scott beat Brad, so he didn’t take another five points out of me, but it was a race I thought I could do better than third.”

Ryde also voiced his concerns about the weather predicted for the final day of the championship, but was happy to be able to limit Ray to pulling back just three points after race one:

“The last few laps let me down, with a few issues, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to fix them tomorrow because the weather doesn’t look great, but rolling on to tomorrow, I’ve only lost three points and I’ll try my best.”