Jason O’Halloran extended his championship lead with a solid second place in the opening race of the sixth round of the 2021 Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Cadwell Park.

Saturday ran to a revised schedule at the Lincolnshire circuit with the threat of storms in the afternoon, resulting in a busy day for the McAMS Yamaha team. A wet free practice session was followed by Qualifying less than an hour later.

Having been 15th on the opening day, Tarran Mackenzie had to fight through Q1 for his space in Q2, a mission he successfully completed, topping the pile to progress to the second session, in which he was joined by team-mate and series leader Jason O’Halloran.

The Aussie was looking good, sat on the second row when a red flag came out with five minutes remaining. Having used the best of his tyre, O’Halloran was concerned about whether he’d be able to better his time but he did just that, missing out on pole position by just 0.047 seconds to Glenn Irwin. Mackenzie further improved his fastest lap time to qualify tenth.

As the race came, there was the threat of rain in the air but it didn’t amount to anything, thankfully resulting in a dry 14 laps. O’Halloran got a strong start settling into second before briefly taking the lead.

Irwin once again got past and tried to make a break, while O’Halloran moved back to third behind Peter Hickman. Irwin’s attempt to break the pack proved unsuccessful as he was soon losing pace with Hickman and O’Halloran closing rapidly. Hickman managed to get past with relative ease, instantly trying to gap the pack. O’Halloran took a little longer to get through, and although he could match Hickman’s pace the gap the local rider had formed meant the Aussie had to settle for a strong second place.

Tarran Mackenzie was inside the top ten and looking for a points scoring finish when he hit the grass on the exit of the Hairpin leading to an almighty highside. Thankfully able to walk away, he sustained some minor damage to his little finger and grazed his back.

O’Halloran’s second place sees him extend his series lead to 74 points over team-mate Mackenzie who remains second despite his DNF. His podium points lead is now 25.

Ian Hutchinson will start tomorrow’s National Superstock race from tenth on the Edwards 1902 Yamaha after qualifying was brought to an early end by a red flag.


Cadwell Park Race 1 Result

1 - PETER HICKMAN

2 - JASON O'HALLORAN

3 - TOMMY BRIDEWELL

4 - GLENN IRWIN

5 - CHRISTIAN IDDON

6 - LEE JACKSON

7 - ANDREW IRWIN

8 - RYAN VICKERS

9 - RORY SKINNER

DNF

TARRAN MACKENZIE

Jason O'Halloran

QUALIFYING - 2nd
RACE 1 - 2nd

“I’m really happy with that. I feel I’ve done a good job this weekend, obviously the weather hasn’t really helped us as we’ve not had a lot of dry track time to get a setting for the race so to be that competitive was really good. I felt Hickman had a bit more speed than us in the middle part of the race but I felt very good at the end and that’s probably the best data we’ll have from the whole weekend so we can make some steps now. I felt comfortable, so that’s good we took another three podium credits so I’m looking forward to the races tomorrow.”

Tarran Mackenzie  

QUALIFYING - 10th
RACE 1 - DNF

“We made good steps today setting a personal best lap time for Cadwell. I got a good launch in the race but got a little bit beaten up. I was getting into a good rhythm and felt good with my bike when I had a little crossed up wheelie out of the hairpin and as it came down it pushed me towards the grass, I felt like I had enough room but my rear wheel caught the grass and flicked me off. I came away relatively unscathed, but there was a lot of damage to the bike so fingers crossed we can get back out tomorrow and I’m able to ride. Sorry to my team, it’s the first DNF of the year so looking to make amends tomorrow.”

Ian Hutchinson - Edwards 1902 Yamaha

QUALIFYING - 10th

“Today was a bit frustrating as we definitely have better pace than 10th on the grid but a few things went wrong in qualifying and then the red flag came out so I wasn’t able to improve the lap. On a positive note, I am feeling good on the bike and feel like we have good pace for the race so we’ll give it a good go and see what we can do.”

Steve Rodgers - Team Principal

“Another excellent performance from Jason. We’ve had very limited track time here this weekend with the weather and a lot of our rivals have tested here, so for him to put in a performance like that when it mattered was brilliant. Another three podium credits in the bag, which is very important at this stage and we can go again tomorrow. He had the pace to win, so let’s see what tomorrow brings. That was a huge crash for Taz, fortunately he is OK apart from a damaged finger and some cuts and bruises. The bike took a significant impact so we need to assess the damage and we’ll do our best to get him back on track tomorrow.”