Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne and Keith Farmer (pictured) experienced mixed fortunes during this weekend’s British Superbike Championships at Oulton Park, but despite not being able to take a win, they did no harm to their future Championship efforts.
Bad weather was the order of the day during Friday’s session and as a result, Byrne couldn’t quite manage a repeat of his victory two months ago. He did manage his sixth podium finish though and as a result, he held onto his third position in the standings, just one point behind Josh Brookes.
Byrne’s team-mate Keith Farmer ended up taking over Stuart Easton’s Kawasaki ZX-10R after an injury sustained at Silverstone a few weeks back meant Easton declared himself unfit to ride. Despite it being Farmer’s first competitive ride onboard the bike, he managed an impressive thirteenth in qualifying. Saturday’s opening race wasn’t so successful however and he was unfortunate enough to crash out of the race at high speed. Though he was uninjured, the bike was unworkable, but after some hard work by the team, he was up and running again by the third race, managing a top twenty finish.
Commenting on the weekend’s events, Shane Byrne was cautiously positive;
‘To have a bad weekend and still come away with three podiums and one hand on a Showdown place isn’t bad going but I was a long way from a win. We had some niggling problems which haven’t helped so we need to sort these and come out fighting at Brands Hatch’
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