Tarran Mackenzie wins 2021 British Superbike title!

Tarran Mackenzie has won the 2021 British Superbike Championship with last-gasp victory over Tommy Bridewell in the penultimate race of the season at Brands Hatch.

The McAMS Yamaha rider, son of triple BSB champion Niall Mackenzie, turned a 30-point deficit to team-mate Jason O'Halloran at the start of the Showdown rounds into a 10-point advantage heading into the weekend's Brands Hatch finale.

Victory in Saturday's race, Mackenzie's seventh of the year, meant he began the final day of the season with a 22-point advantage over O'Halloran, with Christian Iddon (VisionTrack Ducati) 24 points behind and Tommy Bridewell (Oxford Products Ducati) 26 adrift.

Needing to effectively beat all three of his championship rivals to secure the crown in the opening Sunday race, Mackenzie spent the start and finish of the contest hounding Bridewell for the lead, with O'Halloran and Iddon completing a close top four.

Bridewell held the advantage for much of the race, retaliating whenever Mackenzie squeezed past, but utimately couldn’t stop the McAMS rider snatching victory - and the title - by just 0.087s at the chequered flag!

A British Supersport champion in his rookie 2016 season and comfortably on course for a second crown in 2017, Mackenzie's career was in danger of stalling after accepting an ill-fated offer to join the Moto2 World Championship as a mid-season replacement for countryman Danny Kent, managing only a single point.

Mackenzie dusted himself off and returned to the UK for 2018 for a BSB debut with McAMS Yamaha, rebuilding his confidence by scoring podiums on the way to tenth overall.

Now 25, Mackenzie has been on a constant rise ever since, taking fifth in the standings and a first BSB victory in 2019, a position he then matched - but with double the race wins - during the Covid shortened 2020 season.

O'Halloran will still finish this year with the most BSB wins, but all 11 of his victories came before the crucial Showdown stage and two DNFs at Oulton Park put the Australian on the back foot in the title battle.

O'Halloran and Bridewell will now go into the final race of the season tied on points for second in the championship, with Iddon just five behind.

UPDATE: Bridewell finishes the season as BSB title runner-up after another close defeat at the hands of Mackenzie in race three, while O'Halloran completed the podium.

"It was nice to end the year with ten victories, a nice round number!" Mackenzie said. "he goal for race two was to get the job done, I knew I had to win and it was amazing to do it as it took the pressure off for the final race.

"I didn't have much preparation between races two and three but I felt comfortable behind Bridewell. He was setting a good pace but I managed to claw it back at the end. I made the pass on the last lap but after a mistake at Stirling's, he got me back.

"I managed to get it across the line to complete the triple and to extend the championship lead, which I didn't need to do anyway! It's been an amazing weekend and an incredible season for everyone involved and I can't thank the McAMS Yamaha Team enough."