British Superbikes, Oulton Park: Ryde bounces back - “I’ll take a first all day long”
Kyle Ryde made a comeback in the wet after struggling to 13th in race two♔ to double up at the first Showdown weekend at Oulton Park.
After the high of Saturday, which saw the OMG Grilla rider ahead in the overall standings after a hard foughtꦕ win, Sunday was a big comedown, with Ryde making up the time he missed in morning warm-up to still struggle to keep a points finish in race two:
“The warm-up session wasn’t too good - I was like four seconds off and in race one today, sorry race two, I made a big chunk, I made four seconds, but it still wasn’t fꦗast enough. I ended up finishing 13th, and yeah, was a little disappointed, obviously seeing Tommy come fifth after taking the championship lead yesterday”.
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His trye choice, especially his harder compound wet rear, gave the confidence to push over both parts of✅ the final race, split by the red flag, seeing Ryﷺde back to picking up the maximum 25 points again:
“I had a brilliant race then, chose intermeღdiat🍎es in the first half - from 19th got up to fourth and the red flag came out.
Didn’t look like there was 🐼going to be much rain coming, it did wet the track a little bit in a few areas, but we went with the hard wet and I just wanted to pick up where I left off ten minutes before and got my head down where the track was dry - to make sure the tyre was hot when I got off the slippier stuff.
𒁏Got to the front and seen last lap, two and a half seconds - I couldn’t believe my eyes, after the day I’ve had already, with warm-up and the thirteenth place, I’ll take a first all day long”.
That saw the gap narrow again in the championship, with the difference now just six, with only half a point deciding the 2023 winner, every point could prove crucial with six races le🎶ft over the Donington and Brands hatch 🐼rounds:
“Two wins over this weekend, and a race where I didn’t do good, I managed to get a few points - they might count towards the end of the year. So yeah…thanks to all my team that believed in me so much today, biggest thing then - I believed in myself, so yeahಌ thanks everyone”.
