BSB Donington results, Race 3 - Separation kills the fight

The 2023 British Superbikes heads to Donington Park this weekend for the third round of the season, with Glenn Irwin atop the riders' standings. This page will be updated with BSB Donington results throughout the weekend.

Overview

Race 3 - 

Race 2 - Attritional Race 2 takes out several title contenders as O'Halloran wins

Sprint Race - Domination from Ryde as O'Halloran fades

Qualifying - Ryde takes pole position as Superpole returns

FP2 - Ryde continues impressive Yamaha form as Irwin climbs the order

FP1 - O'Halloran into the 1:27s as lap record falls to new track surface

Race 3 

The third and final race of the Donington round of the 2023 British Superbike Championship saw domination from Kyle Ryde, who took his second victory of the weekend, and third of the season.

Kyle Ryde made the holeshot once again, ahead of his teammate, Ryan Vickers, while Tommy Bridewell dropped to third from pole position. Bridewell soon found his way past Vickers, who would also fall victim to Leon Haslam in the opening laps.

The leading group stayed together into the second half of the race, although there was little exchange of positions within that group.

By lap 13, though, those at the front began to stretch the pack out. Ryde led Bridewell away from Leon Haslam, Glenn Irwin, Christian Iddon, and Ryan Vickers, who then began to fight over third place, to the further benefit of Ryde and Bridewell. 

Image credit: McAMS Yamaha

In the final two laps, Ryde stretched further away from Bridewell, and went on to take his second win of the weekend. Bridewell’s second place came ahead of Glenn Irwin, who completed a double podium for the PBM Ducati team. 

Irwin’s third place was almost lost to Ryan Vickers, who launched a late assault in the final two corners, but in the end it was the Ducati rider who came out on top. 

Christian Iddon took his best finish of the season in fifth place, ahead of Lee Jackson, who completed the top six; while Jason O’Halloran was seventh, and Leon Haslam (8th), Charlie Nesbitt (9th) and Danny Buchan (10th) completed the top 10.

Josh owens was black-flagged after not serving a penalty awarded to him for jumping the start.

2023 British Superbike Championship (BSB) | Donington Park | Race 3 Results

Race 2 

Relatively high track temperatures combined with the high grip offered by the new track surface at Donington meant there was little choice to be made when it came to tyres for BSB Race 2. It was hard-compounds all-round, from which Jason O'Halloran extracted the most performance across the 20 laps to take the win.

Kyle Ryde made the holeshot from second on the grid, getting immediately to the front, ahead of Leon Haslam and Jason O’Halloran.

By the end of lap two, the race was beginning to fragment. Ryde and Haslam had a small break over O’Halloran and Danny Kent, although it was, essentially, a leading group of four, while Tommy Bridewell was having to impose some of his pace in order to close in on the leaders, after a gap opened up in front of him when Andrew Irwin crashed on the second lap.

Image credit: McAMS Yamaha

Bridewell’s pace carried him past Danny Kent on lap four, and then past O’Halloran by the end of lap five. He and Haslam looked, as in Saturday’s Sprint Race, to be the strongest challengers to Ryde.

As the race entered the second half, that front three began to stretch away from O’Halloran, who became somewhat disconnected in fourth. On lap 12, though, he was promoted to third, because Ryde crashed out of the lead.

The Ryde crash brought out the safety car, partly because of the position of the bike and partly because of the debris left on the track. The safety car, of course, erased the on-track advantage of Bridewell and Haslam, and brought the likes of Ryan Vickers, Lee Jackson and Josh Brookes - who were sitting in fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively - right, theoretically, into contention.

Bridewell, who now led, went wide at the final corner in order to straighten his run onto the straight, and to try to put himself out of danger into the first corner after the restart, but he went wide. That gave Haslam the advantage, but Bridewell was back to the front by lap 16.

Compared to the race pre-safety-car, the leading group was now six-strong after the safety car period ended. Josh Brookes lay fourth, with Vickers and Jackson behind him. The result was relative chaos, because of the six riders at the front, six thought they could win.

That number was reduced to five when Bridewell, the sole remaining PBM Ducati after Glenn Irwin crashed earlier on, suffered a mechanical issue at the start of lap 18. 

Somehow, with two laps to go, Haslam had dropped to fourth behind Brookes, while O’Halloran and Vickers, on the Yamahas, had managed to streak clear in front.

O’Halloran led onto the final lap, and put in one of his final laps of the weekend to offer Vickers no opportunity at all to pass for the lead. 

Instead, O’Halloran maintained his position at the front, and took his first race win of the season. For Vickers, though, his second place secured his first podium in BSB. Josh Brookes completed the Donington Race 2 podium in third place.

In fourth place was one of the favourites to win: Leon Haslam; while Lee Jackson completed the top five. Charlie Nesbitt took his best BSB result with sixth place, ahead of Peter Hickman (7th) and Tom Neave, who also took a career best result in eighth. Completing the top 10, behind Neave, were Christian Iddon and Jack Kennedy.

Full BSB results from  Race 2 at Donington are below.

2023 British Superbike Championship (BSB) | Donington Park | Race 2 Results

Sprint Race

The first British Superbike race at Donington saw a short blast for the flag, dominated by Kyle Ryde, who took victory for the second time in 2023.

Kyle Ryde made the holeshot from pole position, ahead of his fellow Yamaha rider, Jason O’Halloran, and Leon Haslam. Christian Iddon had also made a strong start, and was fourth from ninth on the grid briefly on the first lap, before he dropped to sixth - behind the two PBM Ducati riders - due to a mistake at the Melbourne Hairpin.

O’Halloran started to drop back by lap four. He was the only one of the leaders with the soft rear tyre, and after one-third distance it seemed to be giving up already. 

While Tommy Bridewell and Glenn Irwin had matched Ryde and Haslam with the hard rear, Bridewell had split from the others at the front by choosing the soft-compound front tyre.

Image credit: Paul Bird Motorsport.

By lap five, Ryde had a small advantage over Bridewell, who was under vague pressure from Leon Haslam in third place, while Glenn Irwin had fallen back from the front three because of the amount of time he lost trying to pass the fading O’Halloran.

By the end of the race, O’Halloran was barely in the points, partly thanks to a fairly hefty shove from Peter Hickman at Starkey’s on the final lap. 

Ryde, meanwhile, was dominant on his way to his second win of the season, which strengthened his championship position. 

Ryde was joined on the podium by Tommy Bridewell and Leon Haslam. Haslam arguably had the pace to catch Ryde, but he could not get past the Ducati ahead of him.

In fourth place was Lee Jackson, who scored his best finish of the season, getting the better of Glenn Irwin who faded in the second half of the race.

 

Josh Brookes rounded out the top six and was the best-placed 2023 BMW M 1000 RR, second-placed Haslam continuing to ride the 2022 variant.

Ryan Vickers is back in action this weekend, and had a solid result in seventh, ahead of Danny Kent, another rider to pick the soft rear tyre. Storm Stacey was ninth, while Charlie Nesbitt completed the top 10.

Full BSB results from the Sprint Race in Donington are below.

2023 British Superbike Championship (BSB) | Donington Park | Sprint Race Results

Qualifying

At Donington this weekend, British Superbikes reverted to the Superpole qualifying format. Of the 15 riders that took part in the one-lap shootout, Kyle Ryde came out best, and will start from pole position in the Sprint Race later on Saturday.

Before the Superpole session, the riders 13th-on-back from the combined practice times on Friday went through a Qualifying session to decide the final three riders to be seeded through to Superpole. Christian Iddon came out best from Qualifying, ahead of Jack Kennedy and Max Cook.

Being the slowest of the three riders to make it through to Superpole from Qualifying, Max Cook was the first rider out for Superpole. Unsurprisingly, the rookie’s lap was not going to challenge for pole position, but as the laps came in the intensity increased. 

Andrew Irwin, the sixth rider to take to the track, was the first to put in a 1:27 in Superpole, with a ‘27.933.

Image credit: Mar-Train Racing

It was not until Tommy Bridewell went out that Irwin was displaced from the top spot, although the #46 Ducati was bumped to second not long after he took provisional pole by Jason O’Halloran, who went a tenth-of-a-second faster than Bridewell.

O’Halloran was demoted immediately after taking provisional pole by Leon Haslam, who went fastest despite completely missing the Melbourne Hairpin.

That left only Kyle Ryde, who took advantage of Haslam’s error to take pole position, and the BSB lap record at Donington Park along with it.

Haslam remained on the front row in second place, while Jason O’Halloran took third. On row two, Tommy Bridewell will start fourth, ahead of Andrew Irwin (5th) and Glenn Irwin (6th); while Jack Kennedy will head up row three from Lee Jackson and Christian Iddon.

The qualifying top 10 is rounded out by Josh Brookes, who will be joined on row four by Ryan Vickers (11th) and Peter Hickman, the FHO Racing BMW squad having a better weekend than they had at the North West 200, but still not perhaps where they would have hoped to be.

Full BSB results from Qualifying and Superpole in Donington are below.

FP2

FP2 for the BSB riders presented more slightly uncertain weather, but also saw two additional riders dip below the 1:28 mark. Kyle Ryde ended up fastest going into Saturday. 

Kyle Ryde’s time of a 1:27.795 was enough for for the #77 to top BSB FP2 in Donington. He was one of three riders to get into the 1:27s, along with Leon Haslam and Jason O’Halloran, Ryde’s fellow Yamaha rider the only one to lap in less than 88 seconds in FP1.

The afternoon session showed greater promise for Glenn Irwin. The #2 arrived in Donington as the championship leader, but got off to a tough start with 16th in FP1. On Friday afternoon, though, he was able to pull his PBM Ducati Panigale V4 R up to fourth place, one spot ahead of his teammate, Tommy Bridewell, who completed the top five with an identical time to Irwin. 

Josh Brookes also showed well in sixth place, ahead of Ryan Vickers, seventh being his best showing yet on the OMG Yamaha. 

Lee Jackson, like Vickers, had one of his best sessions of 2023 on the FS-3 Kawasaki, finishing eighth, and ahead of Danny Kent, who was one of a few riders to not improve on their FP1 time on Friday afternoon.

Andrew Irwin completed the top 10 on the Honda UK machine, while Danny Buchan and Peter Hickman took the final two automatic Superpole spots, looking ahead to qualifying tomorrow. Missing out in 13th was Hector Barbera, which was particularly unfortunate for the Spaniard, as his best time was from FP1, and was identical to the best time of 12th-placed Hickman, set in FP2.

With qualifying in mind, it is worth remembering that the Superpole format returns this weekend for the top 12 riders from the combined practice times, plus the fastest three riders from the qualifying session which will precede Superpole.

Full BSB combined practice results from Donington are below.

2023 British Superbike Championship (BSB) | Donington Park | Combined FP Results

FP1

Free Practice 1 opened the weekend with minorly unstable conditions for the British Superbike riders. Jason O’Halloran finished the session as the fastest rider. 

The session immediately got off to a kind of false start, as Liam Delves crashed at Coppice early on. He was taken to the medical centre. 

Donington has been resurfaced since BSB last visited. This apparently offered a greater level of grip, as evidenced by Leon Haslam who went under the lap record in the first half of FP1. 

Before FP1, the official BSB lap record stood at 1:28.567, but six riders bettered that by the conclusion, despite some small spots of rain at times during FP1. 

Image credit: Mar-Train Racing.

That top six was led by Jason O’Halloran, who held the distinction of being the only rider in the 1:27s, albeit only just with a 1:27.997. 

Behind him, Kyle Ryde was only 0.091 seconds away from joining O’Halloran in the sub-1:28 club, while Josh Brookes, Danny Kent, Leon Haslam and the returning Danny Buchan completed the top six. 

Hector Barbera was seventh, making the most of one of BSB’s more ‘GP-style’ tracks on the TAG Honda, and finished FP1 ahead of Charlie Nesbitt, Tommy Bridewell and Peter Hickman, who completed the top 10. 

Championship leader, Glenn Irwin, fresh off two Superbike race wins at the North West 200 last week, finished FP1 down in 16th.

Full BSB results from FP1 at Donington are below.

2023 British Superbike Championship (BSB) | Donington Park | FP1 Results

Lead image credit: Mar-Train Racing.

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