BSB Silverstone: Yamaha men in control at the end of ultra close FP2

The McAMS Yamaha duo of Jason O’Halloran and Taz Mackenzie made their mark on the opening day of the 2019 Bennetts British Superbike championship by securing first and second positions.

In a session that saw the top 15 riders on the grid separated by just 1.009s around the 1.64mile circuit O’Halloran holds a significant 0.299s advantage over his team-mate and was the only man to set a sub 54s lap.

O’Halloran said: “We got back into the swing of things in FP1, the temperature is very different to last week so we had to make a few changes. We ended the session third and then made a few changes this afternoon and everything was going in a pretty good direction. We did a pretty long run in the middle of the session which was really good and then went out and did the 53’7. There are still things we can work to improve tomorrow, things that might not make a difference to the outright lap time but it’ll make a big difference to how the bike is to ride in the race.” 

Luke Mossey made a welcome return to the front of the field onboard the OMG Racing Suzuki finishing third fastest ahead of top Be Wiser Ducati man Josh Brookes on the new V4R. Tyco BMW rider Christian Iddon bagged fifth ahead of Dan Linfoot with the second Be Wiser Ducati of Scott Reading finishing the day in seventh place.

There were also some surprise performances most notable of which were Team WD-40 rider Claudio Corti in eighth while Honda’s Andrew Irwin out performed not only his Spanish team-mate Xavi Fores but also his Quattro Plant Kawasaki riding brother Glenn Irwin. Luke Stapleford was also the quickest Buildbase BMW, outperforming Bradley Ray who suffered a crash  and lost valuable track time in FP1.