Kyle Ryde takes seventh GP2 Championship win at Brands Hatch

Jacksdale rider Kyle Ryde took another GP2 class win and narrowly missed out on a podium spot in Sunday’s Feature Race at Brands Hatch over the weekend.
Kyle Ryde. Pic by Michael Hallam.Kyle Ryde. Pic by Michael Hallam.
Kyle Ryde. Pic by Michael Hallam.

The British Supersport scene cut a wet and windy weather scene at the international circuit in the South-East corner of the UK, with water on the track when the riders arrived.

But, despite some of the most intense rain in years, the circuit team managed to contain the flooding and eventually dried out the track for Friday morning’s practice.

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And, after a wet and windy start to the weekend’s practice sessions - which saw Ryde and his fellow competitors hampered by the weather, Ryde qualified for Saturday’s sprint race in fourth position.

The 12-lap sprint race came late in the afternoon’s proceedings and the wet weather clouds loomed over the circuit.

As the race field got away it was Alastair Seeley who grabbed the hole-shot, but Ryde had sliced his way through the front rows and was in second place as they crossed the line at the end of lap one.

Ryde, Seeley, Jack Kennedy and Brad Jones swapped places throughout the opening five laps before spots of rain saw the red flag deployed.

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Declared as a wet race by the official, the restart began in dry conditions and saw this quintet again battling.

Ryde remained on slick tyres as the team where confident that it was just a passing shower, but by lap four of the re-start, he was struggling with the conditions and was now down in 10th place.

The rain just kept coming and Ryde finished in a rather low 14th place in front of fellow GP2 rider Josh Owens.

However, not all was lost, as Ryde was still third in the GP2 ratings of the race, with GP2 newcomer Mason Law taking the top spot and Perrin finishing in second on the podium.

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Ryde also took the honour for the fastest lap, with a 1.29.393 lap at a speed of 157.70 Kph in the early stages before the rain came.

Ryde had a much better performance in Sunday’s Feature Race.

He stormed to the lead off the line on his GP2 machine to control the supersport race for the opening laps.

But Seeley managed to nudge his way past Ryde to take over the front running on lap five, moving from third place to first in one move, one lap later saw a new leader in Kennedy and Kyle and Kennedy’s teammate Jones, were in close proximity to the leading duo.

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This was how the race panned out as this leading group of four riders broke away from the rest of the pack, with GP2 rider Perrin quite some way back from them.

Ryde and Jones landed up having their own little battle as was the veteran leaders of Kennedy and Seeley, who were also constantly swapping paint. By lap 14 of this 18 lap race Jones had managed to pass Ryde and was trying desperately to open up a gap.

Ryde was having none of it and on the final lap, going into Clearways, Kyle tried as hard as he could to slip-stream Jones and went through the chequered flag 0.064 of a second behind him to take a well fought and deserved fourth place overall in the race, taking his tally of GP2 wins now up to seven in the GP2 Championship.

An update on Ryde’s Facebook page on Sunday read: “Superb performance from Kyle this afternoon, led from the front for the first five laps before slipping back a little. Kyle takes another great win in the GP2 class and finishes just 0.064 off a podium overall.”

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