BSB:Brands Hatch GP - Brookes & Shakey, Some Kind of Magic...

Well, what more can I say except a mixed bag of fortunes that was!

Crashes once more there were, along with moments to remember as Josh Brookes finally nailed down his first win this year...


Qualifying

The way things were looking it was a banker that either the Tyco Suzuki rider, his Samsung Honda rival Alex Lowes or number 67 Shane 'Shakey' Byrne would take pole position for this one given their recent form as they each sought to battle hard for as many podium credits as race wins, though Shakey it was who was leading the way at the time, leading the form guy Lowes by 32 points.

But who would have the last laugh?

That honour would fall to Byrne as despite the resurging form of Lowes lately, it was he who fell .123 short of Byrne's time of 1.25.672. Brookes himself, looking to make up for all the podiums he's had this year (yet never the top step in the race) was a further .046 back. Kiyo was next with James Ellison looking like he's put his recent horrors to the back of his mind as he made up the start of the second row.

Race One

With knowledge that Shane Byrne was entering his 230th BSB race, this was a shoe-in that surely, on starting in pole position, he would get to turn one first...

WRONG!!!

It was Alex Lowes who did so, beating an electrifying Byrne and Ellison to the punch as they tucked in neatly behind and leaving others thinking that this may be another day to forget for Shakey and the others. Sure enough that would turn out to be the case, but I'll get to that in due course.

Heading round towards Westfield, of all the people it was Josh Brookes who next proved that he was pulling no punches and taking no prisoners as he dispatched not only Ellison prior to this, but later on both Lowes and Shakey in one swift movement, making it look almost effortless. Was this the day when his fortunes changed? You already know the answer to that from the intro, lol!

Now, with Ellison seemingly out of the picture for now, Brookes could concentrate on getting away from both Lowes and Byrne, which would prove harder than it seemed. On lap 5, Lowes was overtaken by Byrne who at that time had been badgered by a resilient Ellison who seemingly wanted to stick to him for as long as possible.

Ellison's luck ran out however, a couple of laps later when for the second time this season (the last time being at Knockhill earlier this season), as he managed to collect Chris Walker, the guy who famously said he was more bothered about what he'd do when he retired rather than actually think about doing it!

Going down into Hawthorns on lap 13 would turn out to be the game-changer as with Ellison now out of the picture it was up to the famous trio to try and battle it out for the win.

Luck was not kind on Shakey as the moment he braked to take the inside on Brookes (momentarily grasping the lead), his bike just fell away from him in quite spectacular style as it hit the gravel trap doing £15k's worth of damage in the process. He'd briefly held the lead, but the brakes dropped the front end forcing Shakey off the bike and causing damage which was looking to be costly if his team couldn't repair the damage in time.

Now with Byrne out of the picture all Brookes had to do was keep it together for the race win and he'd be a darn sight closer to the championship leader than ever before.

I'll tell you something else at this point, since his return Dan Linfoot has been looking really impressive as he took Keith Farmer on lap 15 to take 7th position from him.

So by now it was clear that if anyone was going to stop Brookes from claiming his maiden victory in eight attempts, it would be Lowes. But that was not going to be the way it would work out and some might say that it was meant to be for Josh to win at the Brands Hatch GP circuit, it was always going to pan out this way.

Someone who had been keeping to himself for most of this race was Ryuichi Kiyonari and now with Byrne out of the way and Lowes promoted into second position, he would go on to take advantage of a vacant podium position, taking third position for not the first time this season.

Get this, the average speed from the race winner was 100.42MPH... that's crazy to think he maintained those kind of speeds for the majority of the race, but then it shows you just how seriously those guys take their job!

Someone who gets a special mention this race is PJ Jacobsen who scored his best ever position in a British Superbikes race, clocking out in 5th.

Race Two

On the basis of fastest laps, it would turn out that despite Ellison throwing his bike down the road at Walker, that would still not stop him from taking pole position in Race Two. Lowes it was behind the Race One winner Brookes, with Shakey clocking in at 4th fastest setting up an exciting looking grid.

Into turn one and it was Shakey who was electric off the line closely followed by James Ellison who, apologetic afterwards for what he did to Walker... again, was like a limpet going on to prove that he would be Byrne's main threat for the majority of the race.

Onto lap 5 and Ellison was still keeping a close eye on Byrne's time and matching it reasonably well, for he did not get much more than a second ahead at this point.

Lap 6 would turn out to be where the drama began as Chris Walker scored an unfortunate double DNF (which doesn't really count as 'scoring' does it?), before Lee Costello was next to go out of the race, with the team citing him "tucking in the front" as the cause.

This brought out the safety car which would stay out for a further two laps, before on lap 9 Kuba Smrz was a poor unfortunate soul to crash out the way he did and he lay on the ground looking decidedly dejected from his demeanour.

Fortunately, there was no more drama resulting in Shakey taking home his 231st start in BSB history, proving that the last race was just a fluke, thankfully!

Now, he's won 8 out of 9 races so far this year, has Shakey so it's looking promisingly ominous for the coming weeks as we head ever closer to the Showdown.

Making up the rest of the podium was Ellison (the party pooper, lol!), closely followed by Lowes and narrowly missing out was both Brookes and Kiyo.

Onto the Championship and that result now meant that the gap on Shakey was cut to just 21 points and inside a race win window for Alex Lowes, with Brookes just a solitary point further back.


* * *

Onto the Rider of the Day and I'm afraid this time I'm going to have to go for the bro' who's made it a first win in eight attempts...

JOSH BROOKES

This bro' was looking truly impressive at both races and was pushed all the way for his win in Race One, and only lost out in Race Two because he was beaten by a better guy on the day, the machinery was not too much of a difference.

His form has been impressive and you could almost tell that a win was threatening all the way from the beginning of the season, but the results & conditions just never fell his way until today!

Next up for the boys is the first of the season's triple header's at Oulton Park, so we'll see how things go for that one, won't we?