2022 British Superbike Brands Hatch: O’Halloran continues winning ways
Jason O'Halloran bridged the summer break by picking up where he left off with a late breakaway win in the Saturday sprint race at Brands Hatch.
The GP circuit had already seen the Australian break the lap record to qualify on pole earlier in the day, with team-mate Tarran Mackenzie giving him a run for his money.
“I felt in control”
That ease of performance continued into the race, with the #22 only ever really challenged when his own errors allowed the competition to hot up.
Speaking after the race O’Halloran expalined the situation:
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“I wanted to maintain the low 25’s, we probably could have went a bit faster than that but the only wheel I got shown for the whole race was when I made a mistake and nearly went down and then got passed at the end of the back straight - I felt in control”.
The result for ‘The O Show’ really brings the championship to life too, with just for points separating him from title standings leader Bradley Ray, who currently has a total of 229, but finished off the podium today.
O’Halloran admitted his focus is on the podium points for the showdown, which is even closer with just one point between the Yamaha pair:
“I think the overall standings have closed down, but on podium points, we’re probably on top so that’s the table we’re looking at but … I’m not focused on that at the minute, there’s a long way to go in the championship.
O’Halloran now has the title momentum with five wins in seven of the last races, including three in a row bridging the summer gap.
Mackenzie announces return to form with second
Reigning champion Tarran Mackenzie was finally able to put his injury woes to bed, with a superb second at Brands Hatch.
Finishing behind his team-mate the fellow McAMS rider did not have everything in the race go his way at all, battling back from near falls and overtakes after initially sitting in behind O’Halloran when he gained second:
“Jason had a big moment onto the back straight, I went one way, the boys went the other way, kind of got stuck a little bit, regrouped, came back through to second, for another big moment out of Graham Hill and managed to get back past Tommy (Bridewell ) again”.
The result shows progress over the race weekend so far, after starting fourth on Friday and converting that into a front row start. It is Mackenzie’s first podium of the season after an injury plagued first few rounds, something which he was pleased to have out of the way:
“ I was probably a little nervous if I’m honest, just kind of wanted to get one podium out of the way, as I’ve had a long run of no podiums, so to get that monkey off my back has been great”.
Bridewell bounces back
Another rider returning to the podium was Tommy Bridewell, who has only one previous rostrum visit to his name this season, back at Oulton Park.
The Oxford Products Racing Ducati rider was able to infiltrate the Yamaha dominance at the front after fighting his way into the lead four, who then provided a fierce battle for position, peppered with clean overtakes and taking advantage of rivals errors.
Bridwell shone a light on the progress his garage had made thay has allowed him to be present and competitive at the front of the race today at Brands Hatch:
“I felt confident coming into this round, we’ve not been on the back foot but we’ve not quite come out of the blocks as strong as what I was hoping. We’ve been making really steady progress inside the garage so I knew if we could go to plan we’d be there and we are”.
The Ducati man felt he could have been in the running later in the race but with “four or five laps remaining it turned into a standard BSB race!”
Away from the podium it was Ray on the Rich Energy OMG Yamaha who found himself falling back from the front group, on his way to an eventual fourth,
His team-mate Kyle Ryde had come through Q1 to move up the grid and held his fourth in the early stages before leading the chasing group over the line.
A much improved Josh Brookes was next to finish in sixth for MCE Ducati, just ahead of the battle for seventh, which was won by Cheshire Mouldings FS-3 Kawasaki rider Rory Skinner.
He kept both Leon Haslam (VisionTrack Kawasaki) and Lee Jackson(Cheshire Mouldings FS-3 Kawasaki) behind for eighth and ninth respectively.
Christian Iddon picked up six places to complete the top ten for Buildbase Suzuki.
Old BSB Brands Hatch Lap Record: Josh Brookes - Yamaha - 1m 24.873s (2017)
New BSB Brands Hatch Lap Record: Jason O’Halloran - Yamaha - 1m 24.433s (2022)
2021 Race Winners:
Round 3
Race 1: Tarran Mackenzie
Race 2: Jason O’Halloran
Race 3: Christian Iddon
Round 11 (The Showdown)
Race 1: Tarran Mackenzie
Race 2: Tommy Bridewell
Race 3: Jason O’Halloran
His team-mate Kent was twelfth with the duo split by Peter Hickman on the FHO Racing BMW.
Tom Sykes (MCE Ducati), Andrew Irwin (SYNETIQ BMW Motorrad) and Josh Owens (Rapid CDH Racing Kawasaki) collected the remaining points on offer, with Owens point his first of the season.
Glenn Irwin, who dominated the opening round of the season fell on the first lap, but was still not the first rider out of the race - Chrissy Rouse pulled back into the pits after the warm-up lap.
Dan Linfoot and Strom Stacey retired soon after. Dean Harrison, Ryan Vickers, Danny Buchan, James East and Liam Delves all also failed to see the end of the race.
