Ellison video shows Shakey/Lowes Collision

MCE British Superbike Championship sponsors Drift HD have released onboard footage shot from James Ellison’s Milwaukee Yamaha of the now-infamous collision between Shane Byrne and Alex Lowes in the second superbike race at Assen last weekend.

The video shows Lowes’ Samsung Honda run wide on the exit of the turn as he prepared to move across and set up a passing manoeuvre for the following left hander, but mistiming it and colliding with Byrne’s Kawasaki.

BSB race director Stuart Higgs, who headed up the panel that subsequently disqualified Lowes from the result afterwards, told MCN that the onboard footage from Ellison’s bike had been one of their key pieces of evidence at the judicial enquiry.

“As part of the judicial enquiry we looked at all the available broadcast angles, closed circuit TV footage, and, quite revealingly, onboard footage from Ellison, who was the closest person behind the two of them.”

Having successfully used the same overtake in race one, Lowes attempted to move across behind Byrne exiting turn fourteen, planning on setting up a pass for the next corner. However, he found that the reigning champion had slightly tightened his line, and Lowes was unable to avoid collecting him.

“As he started that manoeuvre it became obvious fairly quickly that he was in the wrong track position. The onboard footage allowed us to see that on lap four Shakey was about ten or twenty centimetres tighter than the lap before, and when  he was on that line and Alex was on his line, a collision was inevitable.”