Ryan Vickers took both wins and the fans’ rider of the round award on Bank Holiday Monday’s Cadwell Park British Superbike Championship, replicating his results at Thruxton two weeks earlier and putting himself firmly in contention for a top three finish in the championship.
The 27-year-old from Norfolk had endured a tough start to the 2026 campaign, his first year back in BSB after a season in the world championship, as he struggled to adapt to the Honda Racing CBR1000RR-R SP Fireblade – a bike often quoted as being one of the more difficult machines to set up in race trim.
Mid-season progress saw a pair of fifth places as the series went to Oulton Park for the second time at the end of July, dramatically improving his pace and results compared to the season opener at the same venue.
Saturday at Thruxton saw a podium performance with a third, which was followed up by a pair of wins on Sunday. It was an impressive performance, but the Hampshire speed bowl is well known for throwing up unusual results. Yesterday’s double at the tight and twisting Cadwell Park, a complete opposite to Thruxton, confirmed the progress made by Honda and Vickers – with team-mate Jason O’Halloran also posting his best results with a fifth and two sixths.
“It’s a dream to win at Cadwell,” Vickers said after the third race. “I’ve always wanted to win here, and to do it after the team built me a new bike after my mistake yesterday is special. It’s not easy around here and everyone rode amazing. We’re in the fight now, so let’s see what we can do in the last three rounds.”
Vickers had been involved in a huge crash in Saturday’s race. Working his way through the pack after running wide on the second lap, he set the fastest lap of the race before running into the back of impressive rookie Joe Talbot after overtaking O’Halloran on lap nine – taking both out of the race. As a result of the incident, Vickers copped a three place grid penalty, but he was able to make a rocket start and lead the 12-lap race from start to finish – a performance he repeated over 18 laps later in the afternoon.
Saturday’s race was won by Rory Skinner, the Cheshire Mouldings Yamaha rider enjoying a similar resurgence to Vickers. The former Moto2 rider has had a consistent start to the season, without really challenging the top three, but also made a breakthrough at Thruxton – taking second on Saturday and leading a number of laps on Sunday at a circuit where he had never previously performed strongly. The Scot led every lap of the first race at Cadwell Park, enjoying a three second lead at one point, but crashed out of podium place early in both races the following day.
In the last round before the points ramp up for the ‘showdown’ rounds of the 2026 championship, there were mixed fortunes for the title favourites. Bradley Ray had been fastest in qualifying, but the McAMS Yamaha rider crashed out of race one as he attempted to overtake Skinner at Park corner on lap five. He followed up with a pair of seconds on Sunday, being unable to find a way past Vickers.
Kyle Ryde showed why he’s a multiple British champion, living up to the adage that you win titles on your bad weekends. The 2024 and 2025 champion scored a second and two thirds, despite feeling under the weather all weekend. The Nitrous Competitions/Nitrous Coin Ducati rider never looked to have the pace to win, but rode intelligently to take three podiums and take the Pirelli ‘King of the Mountain’ award as the top points scorer of the weekend. He extended his advantage to 71 points over Scott Redding, who had a nightmare weekend which started with fourth in the attritional first race and ended with a solitary point for 15th in race three.
The championship now has two weekends off, before reconvening at the TT Circuit Assen, in the Netherlands, for round nine of 11.
