Kyle Ryde secures BSB Cadwell Park Race 1 podium “the very hard way”

Kyle Ryde did not see his BSB Cadwell Park meeting get off to the best of starts - a crash in FP3 left his team making repairs to the Nitrous Coin Nitrous Competitions bike right up to the start of Superpole qualifying, where the Ducati rider shook off his earlier issues for a front row start.

Third quickly became a fight to stay sixth on the opening lap after another poor start, one of very few weak areas in Ryde’s race craft this season, needing to do all the hard work to get to the front again, but given a push by realising he was still ahead of main title rival Scott Redding, as he described to British Superbikes, in their podium reactions interviews after the race:

“It felt like I had the speed for the podium, but it was a very hard way to get there. I got a terrible start, Um I think it was seventh or eighth on the back straight and from then on I just tried to get my head down and, obviously I was still in front of Scott, ‘cause I couldn’t see him in front of me and I made a few passes and then all of a sudden, in the space of two laps there was two people go down and a few people run wide and I was right behind Leon.

Ryde was fortunate to pick up places with Bradley Ray out trying to pass race leader, turned winner Rory Skinner, with Storm Stacey out soon after at the same corner, Park, but Ryde was making moves of his own, with a pass on Leon Haslam taking him second.

From there he defended before digging deep to try to give chase to Skinner - revealing after the race that he was under the weather and struggling, the gap came down but Skinner responded, at the same time Ryde admitted to giving best to his illness, as the reigning champion explained:

“He was obviously setting a good pace trying to keep with Rory. So I was just trying not to do anything stupid and see if he was going to catch him up. But yeah, I think with about seven, eight laps to go I made a pass into turn one and tried to get my head down, and I made a few inroads on Rory.

By that time, I think four laps to go, I was just kind of spent and I kind of gave up and just tried to defend from Leon. But I think tomorrow, as long as we don’t get that three second gap we can have a race at the front, but yeah, happy with the result.”