Alex Lowes took a win and a second place in Sunday’s two ‘Showdown’ 11th-round British Superbike Championship races at Silverstone in Northamptonshire, sharing his finishes with championship rival Shane Byrne and so taking the series down to the wire at Brands Hatch in Kent on 20 October.
Byrne held a lead of a single point going into today’s two Showdown races and maintains the lead over the 23-year-old Samsung Honda rider after sharing the Silverstone spoils equally today.
Frenchman Freddy Foray, deputising for the injured Ryuichi Kiyonari, finished in 11th and 15th positions in the day’s two 14-lap races around the 3.7-mile (5.9km) Silverstone circuit taking two points-scoring finishes on his Samsung Honda CBR1000RR debut.
In today’s Motorpoint British Supersport championship race, Samsung Honda rider Jason O’Halloran was taken out of the lead by another rider on the penultimate lap whilst heading for his debut victory. Fortunately, the Australian rider was uninjured. After qualifying in pole position, O’Halloran also crashed out of contention in Saturday’s Sprint race, consequently leaving Silverstone empty-handed.
Alex LowesIt was a great first race with Shakey and it was really nice after the mistake at Assen. I am pretty lucky that he wasn’t fully fit as that race could have been even more difficult so fair play to him and that is why he is champion! It was a fantastic second race and I said to Shakey afterwards again that races like that are what we live for. You obviously want to come out on top but even to finish second in that one left me with a smile on my face. We improved our pace for race two and the Samsung Honda was great; I tried to push again at the end of the race but fair play to Shakey and now we go to Brands Hatch pretty level with just one point in it. It is still all to play for!
Freddy ForayI'm proud to have raced this weekend for Samsung Honda; the team is very strong and very friendly and it has been great to have been a part of this event. This weekend was a little bit hard for me but the team worked very hard to help me and I want to thank them. I thought I could be better for the second race but it's the game you have and it is never easy. I want to wish all the best to Kiyo for his recovery.
Jason O’HalloranThe weekend was good for me apart from the races! We topped three of the four sessions and were second fastest in the other so we showed that we had the pace. We showed the same in the races but in both of them I got taken down whilst battling for the lead which is obviously disappointing but now we just have to look to Brands Hatch.
Havier Beltran – team managerAlex again has shown his determination to win this title and we have had some areas we need to look at for Brands Hatch. However, his performances in both races were unquestionable and it was a fantastic show. The first race he won was another display of how well he is riding at the moment and the last race with the photo finish could have gone either way too and that sets up for surely an incredible final round at Brands Hatch. We need to thank Freddy for standing in this weekend. He put in a great amount of effort to learn the track and adapt to our Samsung Honda in a short space of time and I was happy with his progress. In the Supersport class, it was a really disappointing weekend for Jason and today’s no-score was no fault of his own. It was an unfortunate outcome after he had worked so hard but we will regroup and come back ready for the two final races of the season at Brands Hatch.
