BSB plays it safe to postpone Donington Park Race 1 until Sunday

The British Superbike Championship will attempt to run all three races at Donington Park on Sunday after aborting two attempts to get the first race underway on Saturday.

On a weekend of dismal weather across the country, series organisers MSV had been proactive in preparing for this eventuality by cancelling qualifying - meaning Friday’s combined practice times determined the grid - and bringing Race 1 forward to midday to give it flexibility in getting things underway.

However, after the first attempt at 12.20 was called off, BSB attempted to get going again at 1.45 - following WorldSBK with which it shares airtime on Eurosport - but with a window of opportunity closing and rain returning, the decision was taken to call off the day’s action altogether in favour of a packed Sunday schedule.

“You can’t put people through multiple restarts,” said series director Stuart Higgs. “It was a surprise weather window that came and we were right to try but it started closing in again. As we say, with the density of races there is no upside to forcing a situation that would be detrimental to the programme. 

“We have been chasing a closing weather window all day, it’s galling that we are 40mins out but we have a contingency to run three BSB races across the day, so that is our objective now.”

It has been a tough season for BSB as a whole, which has reduced its calendar to six rounds in the wake of the COVID-19-initiated delays, and has repeatedly attempted to allow spectators to return only for changing national guidelines to prevent this from happening.

Donington Park represents Round 5 of 6, with Honda’s Glenn Irwin leading a top four of Jason O’Halloran, Josh Brookes and Christian Iddon by 12 points.