Ryde reigns on opening day at Donington Park home round

Kyle Ryde is ready to take the fight to his Bennetts British Superbike Championship rivals at his home round of Donington Park this weekend as he upped the pace to maintain his position at the top of the combined times in the second Free Practice session.

The times tumbled in the afternoon and it was the LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha pairing who were the targets for the chasing pack as Ryde snatched the top spot in the final ten seconds of the second session from teammate Ryan Vickers.

Championship leader Glenn Irwin on the BeerMonster Ducati posted the third fastest time to split the Yamahas, as Jason O’Halloran made it three Yamahas in the top four. Meanwhile his teammate and closest rival Tommy Bridewell was eleventh after a small crash at Goddards during the session as he bids to overhaul his teammate this weekend with the pair separated by just half a point.

Leon Haslam completed the top five for the ROKiT BMW Motorrad Team as Charlie Nesbitt surged into sixth for MasterMac Honda by Hawk Racing.

Lee Jackson held onto seventh as Héctor Barberá had his strongest start to a weekend in eighth place for TAG Racing Honda with Christian Iddon and rookie Max Cook completing the top ten. Bridewell and Peter Hickman were the final riders who will progress directly into tomorrow’s eBay Qualifying 2 session as Luke Mossey and Davey Todd narrowly missed out.

Bennetts British Superbike Championship, Donington Park, Combined Free Practice times:

1. Kyle Ryde (LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha) 1m:27.906s
2. Ryan Vickers (LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha) +0.049s
3. Glenn Irwin (BeerMonster Ducati) +0.124s
4. Jason O’Halloran (McAMS Yamaha) +0.219s
5. Leon Haslam (ROKiT BMW Motorrad) +0.346s
6. Charlie Nesbitt (MasterMac Honda by Hawk Racing) +0.365s
7. Lee Jackson (Cheshire Mouldings Kawasaki) +0.444s
8. Hector Barbera (TAG Racing Honda) +0.618s
9. Christian Iddon (Oxford Products Racing Ducati) +0.653s
10. Max Cook (Cheshire Mouldings Kawasaki) +0.698s
11. Tommy Bridewell (BeerMonster Ducati) +0.745s
12. Peter Hickman (FHO Racing BMW Motorrad) +0.770s

Kyle Ryde
LAMI OMG Racing Yamaha
“Donington Park is my local track, my favourite track, and obviously I went quite well here last time with two wins, so the confidence was there straight away after just a few laps this morning. We tried many things to try and make the bike a lot better, but at the end we just had to put it back to how it was.

“I’m happy to top the times, but not happy with how the lap went or how difficult it was to do that, so it’s back to the drawing board tomorrow and we’ll go back to how it was.

“This is a great track for Yamaha and it’s a great track for myself as well, so blending in together hopefully we can take some big trophies home.”

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