The battle for the opening race win of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship decider at Brands Hatch went down to the wire this afternoon with Josh Waters and Jon Kirkham pushing Howie Mainwaring all the way to the line.

The leading group had been swapping positions throughout the second half of the race and there was nothing between Mainwaring and Waters as the pair exited Clarke Curve for the final time. Waters held second despite fighting to the finish with Kirkham claiming his first podium of the season in third.

Waters said:

"It was a really good race for me. At the start the boys said just don't go and do anything too silly. Free Practice three was also wet and my feeling was really good so they thought that I had good speed and then unfortunately Shakey crashed right in front of me and that kind of ruined my feel for a little bit. Then Howie [Mainwaring] came flying past and the last turn was really close but huge congrats to him. But yeah it was a really good race for me and big thanks to Tyco Suzuki."

Kirkham added:

"I'm really happy for the Halsall Kawasaki team who have been sort of plugging away since round five, getting on the bike pretty late, and we've been struggling the last three meetings. We obviously had a pole at Assen but we've just not been able to turn it into a race result. We nearly got a front row start in the dry earlier but Josh [Brookes] just beat me into fourth so I was looking forward to a dry race and just seeing what I can do but the rain came but hey ho. We'll take a podium and real credit to the Halsall team who have worked real hard - job done."



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