Brookes wins twice red flagged sprint, Redding penalised to last

Josh Brookes maintained his cool amidst red flags to claim victory in race two at Thruxton at the third time of asking, while team-mate Scott Redding was penalised from second to last after failing to heed an in-race penalty.

A staccato second race that had to be stopped twice – first after nine laps because of rain and then again after another five laps because of oil on the track – the deciding encounter would be disputed over eight laps instead.

Having been leading the way at both red flag moments, Brookes would have been aggrieved to lose the win on the third attempt but an excellent start and a rapid first lap was all he needed to gap his opponents behind to wrap up his fourth BSB win of the season.

Four seconds behind, Redding was second on the road, the ex-MotoGP recovering from repeated poor starts to succeed in passing both Andrew Irwin and Peter Hickman at the final corner. However, Redding was running under a long lap penalty directive as punishment for missing the chicane on lap five, which bloated to 15secs being added to his race time.

With the short race keeping the field more tightly-bunched than usual, Redding plummeted from second to 22nd and last.

His misfortune lifted Andrew Irwin into second place, the race one winner picking up almost maximum points on a breakthrough afternoon for the Honda rider.

Peter Hickman suffered with the restarts having been pulling away from the pack and closing on Brookes in the first red flagged encounter but maintained his focus to secure a podium for Smiths BMW in third place.

Jason O’Halloran was just off the podium again in fourth place, ahead of Tommy Bridewell, the local man in the thick of the action but missing the podium this weekend. Christian Iddon completed the top six, ahead of Xavi Fores, Danny Buchan, Luke Mossey and Dan Linfoot.

In the overall standings, Redding leads Brookes by 20 points, while Irwin has moved into the Title Showdown top six at the expense of Fores, who slips to seventh.

However, with erstwhile fourth place man Tarran Mackenzie failing to score after injury forced him to withdraw, only 27 points cover fourth down to eighth (Buchan, Mackenzie, Irwin, Fores, Hickman).