British Superbikes Silverstone: Ryde wins ‘hardest but most enjoyable’ race one
The British Superbike season got under way with an entertaining sprint race which was not short of race leaders challenging for the win. It was to be Kyle Ryde who came out winning for LAMI OMG Yamaha, picking up where his title winning team-mate Bradley Ray left victorious for the team last year.
A more relaxed Ryde, now the more senior rider in the team paired with Ryan Vickers for 2023, set the tone for the weekend topping FP1 and going on to prove his pace with a new lap record in FP3.
The #77 missed out on the qualifying deciding FP2, which saw Jason O’Halloran lead the way and pole - which was taken by Tommy Bridewell as Ryde fell pushing for the top spot on the grid, both of whom figured in the battle for the win along with Josh Brookes.
It was however Ryde who came out on top, battling back to first, managing his timing to hit the front and his tyre wear just right to have just enough in the tank to keep Bridewell at bay and puck up the maximum 18 points with the first win of the season.
His tenth podium and fourth win did not come easy:
“There were a lot of moves - at turn one from me - I must have made about fifteen moves but none of them stuck!
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For me I think it was a great weekend, I’ve had the same pace all weekend, felt strong, only thing I’ve done wrong is have a silly little crash at the left and that did actually give me a bit of a hindrance for the race because it took ages to get going again and to know where the breaking marker was - Josh and Tommy kept passing me.
Small blip aside, the man from Mansfield was happy to get his season off to a winning start, going one better than he did in 2022 where he was second in the sprint behind triple winner Glenn Irwin.
“I’m really happy to get the win - that was the hardest but most enjoyable race I’ve had in BSB.”.
‘Seven laps to go-I better think about getting a gee on here!’
Polesitter Tommy Bridewell was all about the positives following his second place in the race after a tough time recently for PBM in BSB.
Always in the fight at the front and the hunt for the victory he expected battles from exactly who he got them from in the war for the win:
“I knew Kyle would be strong, I knew Jason would be strong, I also knew Josh would be strong so it was no surprise to me to be racing with them - I just really enjoyed that race to be fair.
It was clean, I was kind of involved in a lot of the battles to be fair, Kyle would pass me into turn one and then I could get him back with a bit of Ducati horsepower under me!”
The #46 could pinpoint the exact moment in the race when he readied himself for his final attacks for the lead:
“I was just saying to Kyle, I looked at my pitboard - ‘oh seven laps to go’ - so I better think about getting a gee on here! That’s when I started thinking I need to be in a position to attack near the end - I had full intention to have a go on the last lap but I just couldn’t quite get the run onto the back straight.
Still, his positivity for the turnaround at BeerMonster Ducati was clear, though with an underlying feeling of the work to come to keep the momentum up - “translating a pole into a second is a box ticked - for a minute.”
‘I think that was a bit of a tactic as there wasn’t anything there!’
Josh Brookes had perhaps the most exciting run through the pack on his way to the final podium slot for FHO Racing BMW Motorrad - a true race of ups and downs.
From a cool third on the grid acquired sat in the pits figuring out his plan for the sprint race, the Australian soon slipped back into the pack but with no obvious reason why. Brookes explained that he thinks a loose tear-off was to blame after putting safety first to check the issue:
“I held my position on the first lap and made some passes, and then, coming onto the start/finish straight on the very first lap, something - I guess it was a tear-off or something - was stuck on my leg, on my foot and I could feel this, like, flapping.
I wasn’t sure what it was and obviously, at the speed we were going…it’s dangerous to have something on the bike not right, so I sort of looked down to check it wasn’t anything serious.”
It was here that the Australian suspects that there may have been a little gamesmanship from race rival Glenn Irwin:
“Glenn Irwin comes alongside me and starts pointing down, obviously he could see I was looking foe something and I think that was a bit of a tactic because there wasn’t anything there!”
The two time BSB champion was impressed at how quickly his bike bridged the gap, with tyre wear an issue as he ran wide on more than one occasion late in the race. The good news for him was fellow countryman Jason O’Halloran was having similar issues ahead:
“As the tyres wore and got slippery I started making some mistakes on corner entry and slipped back to fourth. On the last lap Jason looked to be really slowing up with the tyre wear as well and I saw an opening on the last lap and forced my way through a little bit - there wasn’t contact but it was a pretty forceful move.
That left O’Halloran to open his account with fourth for the McAMS Yamaha team.
Glenn Irwin could not match his Honda heroics of last season. Now back at Ducati he was fifth, with Leon Haslam hunting him down on his bike package that he put together late in the pre-season to form his own Rokit BMW Motorrad Team. Danny Kent (ninth) had a similar plan for the year ahead, also with his own team- Lovell Kent Racing Honda.
With his Mar-Train Yamaha team making the move to BSB with him, Jack Kennedy shone on a bigger stage. That familiarity gave him the power to push, building on his track time not only in pre-season but in the handful of rides he had in the class at the end of last season.
The Irish rider was an impressive seventh and closing on the #91 bike, while being well clear of eighth placed Andrew Irwin. His pace sees him able to possibly do more on Sunday as it has earned him a front row start for race two.
Danny Buchan went the wrong way after qualifying sixth to finish tenth for Synetiq BMW Motorrad, as their only entry this season. He was not far behind Kent on track, with Peter Hickman breathing right down his neck looking for a top ten finish before having to settle for eleventh.
Elsewhere, further back the Kawasaki’s have much work ahead of them to be competitive this season. Their highest placed rider was Lee Jackson after a comeback for 14th for the Cheshire Mouldings team.
