British Super Bikes - Round One

Silverstone

19 April 2022

Photographing motorsport at Silverstone is always a challenge what with the distances involved from the spectator areas to the track, and the continuous thick fencing. However, with a little bit of knowledge and some luck you can get some respectable shots.

The PistonClick team have that knowledge and are happy to share this with you via our Circuit Guide pages, so you should be able to reproduce the similar images as we did when we went to the photograph the first round of the British SuperBike Championship 2022.

The National Circuit was in use for the BSB and Support races over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. At 1.640 miles the riders with be passing you just under once a minute, so you need to have your wits about you as the action comes thick and fast.

The top riders will be circulating at around the 53 - 54 seconds at race pace, dropping down to 52 seconds during qualifying. Glenn Irwin posted a 52.796 in Q2 to take pole for the first race and went on to win all of the three races on the Honda Fireblade, which is celebrating its 30th year in production. 

Pole and grid positioning for the subsequent two races are determined by the best lap posted by the racers during the race. The Rich Energy OMG Racing team this year have swapped from BMW M1000RR to running the proven race winning Yamaha R1.

With Kyle Ryde and Bradley Ray who have both had experience and success in the SuperSport series on the Yamaha R6. Riding the R1, they look to be a force to be reckoned with, posting some excellent consistent times. 

Ryde set the fastest lap in race one to take pole for race two ahead of team mate Bradley Ray, with Rory Skinner on the Kawasaki making up the front row.

Ray made a great start to race two, leading the pack and setting a new lap record of 53.102 during the race to claim pole in race three. 

It was not to be Ray's race however. He came off at Luffield whilst in the lead, handing the number one spot to Glenn Irwin. Ryde, now elevated to second, battled with Irwin for the lead to the finish line but was 0.079 behind when the chequered flag came out.

Race three had the Yamahas of the Rich Energy OMG Racing team on the front row again joined by Rory Skinner, with Andrew Irwin in fourth next to his brother Glenn back in fifth.

Skinner got the better start and took the lead, but not for long. In lap four Glenn Irwin took the lead and stayed there until the end of the race to make it three wins from three, an outstanding achievement considering the injuries he picked up in pre-season testing.

Bradley Ray didn’t give up the battle easily and was pushing hard to catch Glenn Irwin, launching himself out of the seat twice, but couldn't close the gap and was followed in by Andrew Irwin for the final podium place. 

It was great to see the young guns at the front of the race and on the podiums, but that is not the story of the meeting. What happened to the big guns? Sykes, Haslam, Brookes - they were all mid table and didn’t trouble the front runners at any stage during the weekend.

O'Halloran, Buchan and Bridewell faired a little better, coming in 5th, 6th and 7th on the final race to pick up some championship points.

It's way too early in the season to pick out the championship contenders as some of the riders and machines don’t do well at Silverstone, but will do well at the twisty undulating tracks like Cadwell and Oulton.

However, on the form we have seen from the front runners last weekend it's going to be a great competitive season.

One aspect of the racing at Silverstone that stood out for me was the amount of crashes. Racing incidents are not uncommon in BSB, but there were a lot of the riders from all of the classes hitting the tarmac in what was very good riding conditions.

Even the best riders will push it too far or get on the throttle too early and make a mistake, but from where we were watching at Brookland and Luffield it was a crash fest. In motorcycling it's all about grip and traction, so were there any factors that could have contributed to the amount of crashes?

Five days before round one, Japfest was held at Silverstone and part of that car show included drifting round Brookland and Luffield, where the cars enter Brooklands sideways at 100mph laying down and burning off lots of rubber before transiting to Luffield.

What this did was put a lot of rubber on parts of the track, not on the motorcycles' racing line, but they did cross over that racing line. Did this have an influence on the grip levels, more in some, less in others? Who knows. Only the racers can expand on this, so when I next see them I will ask the question. 

Two riders that didn’t appear to have any problems with grip were #14 Tim Neave on the Edwards Yamaha in the National SuperStock who took two race wins from two starts, with Jack Kennedy doing the same in the SuperSport class.

Now if you are a regular reader of the PistonClick site you will know we unofficially adopt a rider, racer or team for the different series we cover. For the last few years in BSB it's been Keith Farmer, but as he has now sadly retired we started looking for someone else.

For this season we are following an inspirational band of brothers that are very different to the rest of the BSB and support race paddock.

True Heroes Racing is a race team that supports wounded, sick and injured UK service personnel to participate in motorsport along side able bodied racers in order to help boost the rehabilitation and recovery process.

This unique setup importantly also inspires other veterans and serving service personnel going through difficult times, by demonstrating that through hard work and dedication anything is possible after life changing injuries.

The team runs in two of the BSB support race series and at other club level racing in the UK. In SuperStock 1000 they have two riders, Dave Mackay (Scrawn) who served in the British Army for 22 years hence his race number, 22. He has been with the team since 2015 and also mentors the up and coming racers via a grass roots programme. 

Dave Sellers #61 is a Navy veteran who has competed in the Isle of Man TT. Retiring from road racing after the 2017 season, he is now a regular True Heroes racer on the short circuits again in the SuperStock. Dave couldn’t make the first round due to work commitments. 

In the Ducati Tri Options Cup the team are running three riders, #15 Leon Wilton who is still serving in the British Army, #44 Charlie White from the Royal Marines and ex Army Veteran Chris Ganley. Chris will be the first upper body injured rider to compete at this level.

In the very competitive SuperStock race Dave Mackay finished up in 29th place with a fastest lap of 57.653

Leon Wilton and Charlie White were 13th and 17th in a shortened Ducati TriOptions Cup race, which was start-stop affair as the red flags came out after Connor Rossi Thomson crashed on his own oil, requiring the track to be cleaned of the contamination.

Chris Ganley unfortunately didn’t make the cut for the race after qualifying. On a positive note he scrubbed a massive four seconds from his personal best round Silverstone on his new Ducati Panigale V2.

Thanks to David Harbey for the race day photos. You can see more off David's work by following the links. The PistonClick team will be at Oulton for the next test day, so check back here or follow us on Facebook for when our latest report is published.