Shane 'Shakey' Byrne scored the first win of the 2013 MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship season ahead of Alex Lowes and Josh Brookes, here the top three give their view of the race.

Byrne edges closer to race winning record

Byrne moved to within one race win of Ryuichi Kiyonari's record as the Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki rider won the opening race. Byrne had been battling with Brookes, but admits he was cautious over the early stages.

Byrne said: "I had a better start than anticipated and found myself leading the race at the start. At the beginning I might as well had been riding to the shops as I didn't want to be leading for 30 laps because the circuit is short and then you push harder and you never know what the other guys will have in reserve. I cruised about then Josh passed me and that was cool, so I could see what he had. I saw Keith (Farmer) up to third and thought 'fantastic' as I knew Josh and Alex would be strong at the end of the race. I upped the pace in the last laps to try and get a bit of a gap and from then on tried to be consistent and it paid off."

Lowes scores podium on Samsung Honda race debut

Lowes was positive after the opening race as he scored a podium finish on his race debut with the Samsung Honda team. He converted his second place qualifying position into the same result in the race and is gearing up to push harder in race two.

Lowes said: "At the beginning I was tucked in behind Shakey; he is awesome to race with and he is fast here but to be honest it was nice just to get that first race of the year done. I was looking forward to it a lot, when you sit on the grid and get those butterflies it is an awesome feeling and I have missed that. My goal was to start the season with two consistent results so hopefully we can do that again in race two. I had a good pace and we had some good battles; if I can get on the podium again in the next one I will be really chuffed. You never know, if we get a better start and push a bit harder earlier on in the race then we will see what we can do."

Brookes wanting more for race two

Brookes secured a third place for Tyco Suzuki but was disappointed that he couldn't push the leading pair harder for the win in the closing stages of the race.

Brookes said: "I really enjoyed the race, but I wasn't happy to finish third. The passing and action was good and it was exciting to be swapping places at the start but unfortunately we couldn't do it right through to the end. I was pushing but I couldn't maintain the lap times of Shakey and Alex and we will try and lift our game for the next race. We are going to try and improve a few things for the next race and we just need to find that little bit more to move it up to the next level."