British Superbikes: first win for Vickers in red flagged wet race

The sprint race at Brands Hatch saw Ryan Vickers pick up his first BSB win as he excelled in the tricky conditions before oil stopped play.

Lisa Lewis

22 Jul 2023

Ryan Vickers, Danny Kent, Race 1 , sprint, Brands Hatch, 2023, red flag, oil — Ryan Vickers, Danny Kent, Race 1 , sprint, Brands Hatch, 2023, red flag,…

Ryan Vickers was out in front when the red flag ended proceedings on lap seven and a tricky oil spill in the rain meant the result was declared, bringing a first British Superbike win.

Vickers, 2023, Brands Hatch, Yamaha, win, BSB, Sprint, red flag, oil

‘ I felt really comfortable in the lead, especially in these conditions’

The LAMI OMG Yamaha rider built on sporadic recent podium success over the last few rounds for an assured performance in the wet to become the sixth different winner of the season as he and Danny Kent pulled away with assured performances in the trecherous conditions - the front was the safest place in the race with the most visibility:

“It’s difficult to actually tell what the person is doing behind you … It’s always difficult to know where someone you haven’t ridden behind is going to make a move on you, but I was riding my own comfortable pace… there was one corner that was really tricky and kept catching us all out I think - from Surtees onto the back straight - but I just rode a consistent race, just want to hit every apex.

Danny came past me on lap one and I managed to get back straight away at Surtees, then a lap later I got Tommy Bridewell so it was good I felt really comfortable in the lead, especially in these conditions where there is a lot of spray and stuff like that, get a bit of clear air, I feel a lot more comfortable when I’m on my own in the lead.”

The #7 believes that his new home at OMG Racing for the season is key to unlocking his success, with a string of strong performances in the dry leading up to his first win:

“Amazing you know, sometimes in the last few years I never thought it was going to happen again, but we stuck by it and people my corner believed in me and what I was capable of, I knew it was capable, it was stock 600 but I knew I could rider superbikes at this level, I’ve found the right team and the right package that suits me and British Superbikes we’ve put it together finally.

‘I’m over the moon!’

Vickers was joined on the podium by his main rival, Danny Kent who looked just as at ease in the wet, sitting behind and ready to pounce if the race had gone on as Vickers wobbled at hit the limits first ahead:

“It was good fun out there, very tricky, Ryan took the lead and I felt good, but in those conditions I feel it’s sometimes a bit better to let someone else run the pace. I felt really strong behind him I saw a few areas I was stronger than him but there were other areas he was stronger than me”.

Kent made the switch from Suzuki to Honda with his own Lovell Kent Racing outfit, and having gone well and Brand Hatch in 2022 on the under-performing Suzuki, was confident that is previous experience at the circuit along with his new ‘old’ machinery will make all the difference for this weekend and onwards:

“I’m over the moon! Big thank you to the LKR Honda team, I think what we’ve achieved up ‘til now is really good for a new team, but I feel like we can do this on a regular basis.

Already from FP1 I felt great on the bike really I’m riding the bike that Glenn Irwin was riding last year and he’s won round here in the dry so it’s just down to me and the team to make the most of it.

Were been strong in the dry, so yeah, I looking forward to tomorrow”.

The final podium spot went to Christian Iddon, who was the first to be alert to the oil on track, attempting to alert the marshals and bring out the red flag for the safety of all.

‘I couldn’t see anything at all really!’

The issues were threefold for the Oxford Products Ducati rider - a lack of traction, a lack of visiblity and then oil on track:

“The season so far has been pretty rough, the first three rounds we just didn’t even turn up basically. It’s cool to get a podium finally I actually felt really, really good…knew left myself a bit of work to do, got a distinctly average start but then a really good first few corners.

Good to see everyone playing fair and I was able to pick my way through, got a feeling with the bike, felt really good especially in certain places, it was kind of weird there were some corners where I felt like I had a really good rear end and get loads of traction, then the last corner was an absolute disaster for me trying to get any traction at all -I was either slow or out of the seat!”.

Iddon had managed to work around that when a new problem became prominent:

“I tried to work through that then had a really bad visor issue for about lap three onwards, I thought ‘I’m really in trouble’ tried to fix it by opening up some vents and just let more water in, I couldn’t see anything at all really I was just trying to stay on the black bit that’s about all I could see, I kind of got used to that and it wasn’t too bad in the end, I could understand where I was at, I was able to nibble away at the two guys in front who were running a real cool pace, the pace they were running was also pulling me away from the guys behind.

Ran over a patch of oil, nearly crashed, then I knew we were going to get a red flag situation and I think it’s the right call to not let us back out as there was a lot of track contamination”.

Behind the duo Jack Kennedy also put in his best performance to date in his first full season with Mar-Train Yamaha converting a best qualifying of fourth to the same position in the race.

The championship was pretty much unchanged, with half points awarded but most of the main players lower down the finishing order.

That meant Tommy Bridwell managed to extend his lead by a small margin, from 25 points advantage to 26.5 over BeerMonster Ducati Team-mate Glenn Irwin with the pair finishing seventh and tenth respectively.

Kyle Ryde holds third despite a 15th place finish, with Josh Brookes plummeting from second on the grid to 13th on the race still fourth overall, two points behind the #77.

Leon Haslam, who was shown the ‘meatball’ flag for dropping the oil and smoke from the rear of his bike is fifth and only half a point behind the Australian on 169 after placing sixth in the sprint.

UPDATE: On Sunday morning Haslam was removed from the race result for race one, having been declared inactive in the race due to already being showm the black/orange flag which lead to the red flag situation.