Silverstone BSB: Lowes does the double

Alex Lowes completed a sensational double in the second British Superbike Championship race on Sunday afternoon, in what was, arguably, one of the greatest BSB races ever.

With less than a second covering the top five for much of the race, it all came down to a final lap sort out between Lowes, Shane Byrne and Josh Brookes but a thrilling final corner pass on Byrne gave Lowes a stunning win.
 
It was Byrne who grabbed the lead on the opening lap from Michael Laverty and Brookes and, in a similar vein to the first race, the leading pair exchanged places regularly over the next few laps.

Indeed, lap five saw them having a coming together with Byrne dropping back to fourth but with just 0.3s between 1st and 4th, it was still anyone’s race.
 
Going into the final third of the race, the leading five riders split into two groups with Byrne, Lowes and Brookes disputing the lead and Laverty and Tommy Bridewell doing similar for fourth.

Meanwhile, there was an equally close battle going on for sixth between Tommy Hill, Chris Walker, Luca Scassa and James Westmoreland.
 
All eyes were on the battle for the lead though and going into the final lap, it looked as if Byrne had enough of a gap to hold on for the win, especially as Lowes and Brookes were continuing to trip each other up.

However, Lowes had other ideas and coming into the Complex for the final time, he was close enough to overtake and he squeezed through at the final corner to take the win by just 0.042s! Brookes was only a further half second back in third whilst Bridewell got the better of Laverty for fourth.
 
Scassa, using the harder compund tyre, again got stronger as the race wore on and was rewarded with a fine sixth but Hill’s title hopes look over as he could only manage seventh once more. Walker, Westmoreland and Peter Hickman completed the top ten.
 
The results mean that Byrne has a 9-point advantage going into the final round, with 608 points to Brookes’ 599. Lowes is now up to third on 584 followed by Hill (566), Laverty (561) and Bridewell (544)/
 
British Superbike Championship race 2
1 Alex Lowes (Honda)
2 Shane Byrne (Kawasaki) +0.042s
3 Josh Brookes (Suzuki) +0.516s
4 Tommy Bridewell (BMW) +4.125s
5 Michael Laverty (Honda) +5.332s
6 Luca Scassa (Honda) +9.726s
7 Tommy Hill (Yamaha) +10.638s
8 Chris Walker (Kawasaki) +11.126s
9 James Westmoreland (Honda) +16.772s
10 Peter Hickman (BMW) +18.791s