A sensational second place for Glenn Irwin at Oulton Park
Oulton Park
The Honda Racing UK team are leaving the ninth round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Oulton Park celebrating after a solid weekend, which saw Glenn Irwin take second place in the final race of the day aboard the CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP.
Getting his Showdown challenge off to a strong start, Glenn and the team have made progress across the weekend taking two fourth places in the eBay Sprint Race and today's Race 2. Breaking into the 33s during today's first race, Glenn showed podium pace and for a few laps was running second, but it wasn't meant to be as he had to settle for another fourth position.
For the final race of the day Glenn and the Fireblade were in pole position, but after a move by Tommy Bridewell on the opening lap, Glenn was a position behind in second place. Across the shortened 15-lap race Glenn held strong, defending the second-place spot and fending off the chasing pack, to come home scoring his best finish at Oulton Park with the Fireblade.
Glenn's result from this weekend (4-4-2), leaves him in a strong position in the Showdown, with the next round taking place at Donington Park's GP circuit next weekend, where he's fourth in the overall standings with 1062 points and just three points behind Lee Jackson in third place.
For Glenn's teammates it has been a weekend of two halves, Superbike rookie Tom Neave enjoyed a strong race yesterday where he scored points finishing 14th. But his luck turned today where he crashed out of both races, unhurt. Takumi Takahashi leaves the weekend with one point scoring finish in today's first race in 14th place, but finished just outside the points in 16th place in the final race. Meanwhile Ryo Mizuno struggled to improve from his Race 2 position where he finished in the points in 15th after coming home 20th in the final race.
The team will now look forward to the tenth round of the series, which takes place in just a few days' time at Donington Park on 30 September - 2 October.
This weekend is a reward for a lot of hard work and the biggest credit must go to the team, we have a bike that is a fantastic Superstock bike, and also a fantastic Superbike at many different tracks, as we have seen in road racing and also here in BSB. But we've also had tracks where we have been weaker. I'd love to have won today and on the final lap I tried with Tommy [Bridewell] and I could see his tyre was dropping off so I had to get Druids as good as I could, and I feel that I got it as good as I could, we just lost out a little to him in the run to the last corner. But to come away with a second place here, it feels like a victory! It's been an incredible run of races with Snetterton and being so close to a podium there, then two fourths and a second here. The consistency that got us into the Showdown remains so far and we now go to Donington, which is a track where I think we'll be a lot stronger.
In race two I was able to improve my pace and score some points. In race three I had a problem with the rear tyre from the start and had to slow down. It was a disappointing end, but I feel confident that I improved my best time by more than a second and scored some points here in Oulton. We will be back at Donington Park soon and we will be ready for the challenge.
Oulton Park isn't an easy track for me, but I started the first day in a good mood. But after the crash in FP3, I lost my rhythm a bit and it was not an ideal weekend for me. After three races, I can see a lot of issues to improve on again, so I'll be ready for Donington Park next weekend.
It's been a weekend of two halves really, it started off building nicely; I had one of the best feelings I'd had all year with the Fireblade, I did my fastest-ever lap and I was feeling confident we could work through the field and start to make some solid progress. But unfortunately with the events of race two with three restarts and a crash I couldn't avoid, it turned south pretty quickly! For the final race as I didn't score a time in Race 2 I was starting from the back of the grid, and I was eager to come through and maybe just tried a little too hard to catch the guys ahead to do a good lap time, and ended up tucking the front. It was a disastrous Sunday really, from what should have been a really good solid weekend in the points, I was 14th in warm-up and everything was set-up to be a solid day. But, we go to Donington which is a track I like in five days, so fingers crossed we can have a good weekend there.