Silverstone BSB: Irwin on pole for season opener

Glenn Irwin came through from Q1 to claim pole position for the opening British Superbike Championship race of the season at Silverstone, the Honda Racing rider setting a scintillating lap of 52.796s.

That was more than half a second inside the lap record and it put him 0.155s clear of the Rich Energy OMG Racing Yamaha of Kyle Ryde with his teammate Bradley Ray a further tenth behind in third. The leading 12 riders were all under Jason O’Halloran’s lap record set in 2020. Irwin, Peter Hickman, Leon Haslam, the impressive Dan Jones, Takumi Takahashi and Tom Sykes all progressed from Q1 but it was Andrew Irwin (Synetiq BMW) who set the initial pace in Q2 with a lap of 53.602s although he was quickly bumped down the order by Ray and Ryde, Ray setting a quick lap of 53.042s. Ryde immediately bettered that with the first sub-53s lap of the weekend at 52.982s but he too was quickly upstaged with Glenn Irwin setting the aforementioned lap of 52.796s. Ray slipped back to third with Rory Skinner, Andrew Irwin and Haslam completing the top six. Tommy Bridewell (Oxford Products Ducati) moved up to fourth with four minutes to go as Ryde cut the gap to Irwin to 0.155s and Haslam and O’Halloran also improved to slot into fifth and sixth respectively. However, with two minutes to go, the red flag came out after Danny Buchan’s Synetiq BMW expired through Maggots with oil having seemingly been dropped both onto his rear tyre. That meant everyone just had time for an out lap and then a flying lap to secure their grid positions – if they had a tyre left to do it. As it turned out though, no one did and Irwin, Ryde and Ray duly held on to the front three positions. Bridewell, Haslam and O’Halloran will start from the second row with Skinner,