Mackenzie: O’Halloran ‘would have very likely won’ BSB title without showdown

Despite a broken hand and wrist shortly before the 2021 BSB showdown took place, Tarran Mackenzie still managed to come out on top and claim a maiden title with McAMS Yamaha. 

Mackenzie, who was over 150 points down on team-mate Jason O’Halloran following Silverstone - the first round before the showdown, managed to tie his total of five wins through the first seven race weekends in just the last three events, including a hat-trick at the season finale at Brands Hatch. 

After a mistake-free opening seven rounds it was O’Halloran who made the crucial mistakes as he lost a very likely race one win at Oulton Park due to a crash from the lead, before eventually sustaining another DNF in race three. 

When speaking to Crash.net, Mackenzie highlighted that without the ‘strange championship’ that BSB is due to the showdown bringing the gaps closer together for the top eight - basically creating a mini championship shootout where podium credits from all the previous rounds determines the points gaps, he would not have won the title. 

"Yeah, it’s a strange championship. Obviously it’s worked out for me because if we didn’t have the showdown; you don’t know what would have happened, but it’s very likely that Jason would have won it," Mackenzie told Crash.net. 

"You always want to be leading the championship like he was, but when that kind of gets away from you, you kind of just think about the showdown that’s coming, so you just want to get as many podium credits as possible. 

"Suddenly it goes from if I had a crash and Jason won he would only gain five points, whereas when you get into the showdown it goes back to the normal championship. 

"When I crashed at Cadwell and missed three races; well I crashed in the first race and missed the two Sunday races and Jason had a really good weekend - he had a strong points lead at that point, and then it went away from me a lot. 

"At that point it was just about trying to focus on not having any DNF’s and trying to claw back some of the points that Jason was gaining on me. 

"Then I went to Silverstone and we had that coming together again! I broke my hand, broke my wrist and at that point I thought it’s going to be tough now. 

"I thought Jason was; he was injured as well, but when we went into Oulton Park I still had a broken hand and broken wrist before going to a track where he had previously done the triple at the start of the year - was a track where I’d never won at or was on the podium at in Superbikes.

"So it was just about getting to the showdown fit and healthy. As we’ve seen in previous years anything can happen and as we saw Jason had two DNF’s and I came out leading." 

Both riders will be returning to McAMS Yamaha in 2022 and will without doubt be the two favourites for the title. 

Mackenzie will also get his first taste of WorldSBK action next season after it was confirmed that three wildcard rounds will be taking place for the Scottish rider.