Oulton BSB: Long-radius turns still the issue for Irwin

Although he relinquished his early season lead in the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Oulton Park, Glenn Irwin finished the weekend content with both his and his Honda Racing team’s work.

The Carrickfergus man knew he wouldn’t be able to repeat his stunning hat-trick from the opening round at Silverstone and seventh proved to be his best result at round two. “The weekend panned out exactly as I thought and I told everyone I spoke to before the weekend that it would be difficult to repeat Silverstone’s results at Oulton,” he said. “I really enjoyed riding the bike at Oulton this weekend and we’ve improved from where we were in 2021 but whilst there are some areas where the bike works well, there are some where it doesn’t. The long radius corners are the ones that are still causing us the most problems, particularly mid-corner.” “Turns one, two and three here at Oulton are all like that but whilst you can never be happy with seventh, I’m happy knowing I gave 100% in every race.” With his seventh place backed up with ninth and 11th, he still sits in a more than healthy second overall in the standings, just six points behind Bradley Ray who took a brace of victories at Oulton. “Fair play to Bradley and what he did this weekend but being perfectly honest I wasn’t expecting to pick up podium credits. I obviously gave everything to try and achieve that as I don’t go racing to finish seventh but it was more about scoring consistent points and keeping myself well in the mix which is exactly what I’ve done.”