Kyle Ryde denied victory in British Supersport Championship at Snetterton

Saturday’s qualifying was to be a follow on from free practise and again the front runners were to be Ryde, Luke Stapleford and Sam Hornsey, but this was to be exceptionally record-breaking for both Kyle and Luke.

Ryde set the early pace and, by lap 3, he had smashed the lap record for a Supersport bike at the Norfolk circuit and then produced another record breaking lap on lap 5.

But with six minutes of the 30 minute qualifying session to go, Stapleford was not taking this lying down and he retaliated by producing another record breaking lap and taking pole position from Kyle, with an amazing lap of 1.50.244.

With the chequered flag, Kyle blew Luke’s pole position clean out of the water, with an amazing 1.50.122 Lap!

The Saturday Sprint race was later in the day and this was to be a extension of the earlier battles in qualifying between Ryde and Stapleford.

This ten lap sprint race soon became a personnel fight between these pair as they dropped off the remainder of the pack of Hornsey, Rispoli, Dixon and Reid.

By half race distance Kyle was managing to hold off Luke, then on lap six Kyle made a dramatic mistake and ran off onto the dirt, allowing Luke to take the lead.

As Kyle gained his composure he then went onto to yet again break the lap record for the Supersport class at this circuit, but Stapleford was having none of this from this young-gun and, by lap eight, he also smashed the earlier record set by Kyle.

The last two laps turned into a huge battle between these two very talented ‘Gladiators’ and it would be anybody’s guess as to who would finally take the chequered flag.

With Luke finding a false neutral gear, Kyle went in to the lead on the ninth lap and it began to look as if Kyle was going to be climbing onto the top spot on the podium, but Luke yet again managed to dig deep and fight back to get in front of Kyle.

As the pair made the dash up the incline to take the chequered flag, Kyle was still trying to slipstream the powerful Triumph mounted Stapleford but to very little avail as the British made machine, just showed it’s extra horsepower to glide Luke to the victory by a mere 0.09 seconds.

But Ryde was left disappointed on Sunday as he was denied a second championship win.

Ryde had opened up a 1.5 sec gap on Stapleford, before Stapleford charged down the inside line to try an ambitious overtaking move.

It resulted in both riders coming off into the run-off area and left them watching as third-place Irwin went on to take top spot.