BSB: Byrne: 'I don't think it's ever been this close!'

Shane Byrne has said he’s hoping he’s had his share of bad luck for the 2017 season as the MCE British Superbike championship heads into one of the closest title battles in history.

Just 14 points split the top four ahead of this weekend’s opening Showdown round at Oulton Park, and after failing to score in a whopping seven races so far this year Byrne will have his eyes set on taking maximum points at the Cheshire circuit.  

“I don’t think there’s ever been such a close title fight,” he told MCN. “Lots of us have missed lots of races and the reality is that’s made it difficult and meant it’s taken until now to decide the six title fighters.

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“From a points point of view we are nowhere near where we wanted to be in terms of advantage over our rivals.  That being said, I’m happy and optimistic going into the Showdown as I had to use the SC1 harder rear tyre at Silverstone. Josh ran the SC0 (softer tyre) which I usually use but didn’t have the pace to get away at the front, so that made me pretty happy. We struggled with the SC1 a lot last year but it seems this year we’ve made a step forward with it and that’s always good heading into this end of the year when the temperature can be a bit colder.

“We’ve had three bad rounds now and hopefully bad luck comes in threes and we’ve had our share of bad luck meaning we can go into the Showdown strong.” 

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