A win for Tommy Bridewell, podium for Josh Brookes and a strong weekend for Christian Iddon at Donington Park

• Tommy Bridewell wins Race 3 at Donington Park, his 2nd BSB victory with the Oxford Products Ducati team
• VisionTrack Ducati's Josh Brookes scores a podium in the opening triple-header race of the season 
• Christian Iddon completes his first race weekend with his new VisionTrack Ducati team

The opening triple-header British Superbikes race weekend was a mixed one for the two Ducati teams, with Tommy Bridewell taking a dominant win in the final race while Josh Brookes suffered a fast crash after contact by Andrew Irwin.

Race 1
The first British Superbike race of the restarted 2020 season on Saturday saw VisionTrack Ducati's Josh Brookes step onto the podium at Donington Park.

Brookes had briefly held 2nd in the race but was ultimately unable to challenge Honda Racing's Andrew and Glenn Irwin with the former taking the win just ahead of his brother.

In his first race with the VisionTrack Ducati team, Christian Iddon put on a strong performance to finish behind his teammate in 4th, while Oxford Products Ducati's Tommy Bridewell completed the Top 5 finishers.

Race 2
Brookes lined up for the first Sunday afternoon race on pole, with Bridewell joining him on the front row in 2nd, and Iddon at the back of Row 2. In the opening stages of the race Glenn Irwin led, with Brookes, Bridewell and Iddon sitting behind in 2nd, 3rd and 4th respectively.

As the race progressed the Irwin brothers were out in front once again and it looked like it would be Bridewell in contention for a podium place until he ran on at the chicane, re-joining the National circuit behind the VisionTrack Ducati teammates.

The Irwin brothers took another 1-2, with Brookes finishing the race in 6th, Iddon in 8th and Bridewell crossing the chequered flag in 9th.

Race 3
Impressive lap times from the previous race saw Bridewell line up in pole for the 3rd and final British Superbike race of the weekend. He led the pack into Redgate from the start and immediately created a gap out in front.

Brookes and Iddon battled their way up from the 3rd row, with Brookes passing Andrew Irwin into the chicane on Lap 6 and Iddon also passing the Honda rider shortly after. 

By this point Bridewell had opened up a 3.5s lead, which he managed for the remainder of the race. He went on to take the first Ducati British Superbike victory of the season - his 4th British Superbike career win, and 2nd win with the Oxford Products Ducati team. 

Unfortunately, Brookes' race came to an early end at the top of Craner Curves, crashing out after contact from Andrew Irwin. Despite the incident’s high speed, Brookes was able to walk away safely. But it was certainly not the end to his weekend that he had planned.

Brookes' exit promoted a place to teammate Iddon, and with Andrew Irwin subsequently disqualified for avoidable contact, Iddon wrapped up his debut race weekend with the VisionTrack Ducati team with another impressive 4th place finish.

Tommy Bridewell (Oxford Products Ducati #46)
Race 1, 5th - Race 2, 9th - Race 3, 1st
“I'm chuffed. We had a lot of troubles at the test and here. I felt so, so bad on the bike. But the team are just such warriors. They just keep, keep, keyboard bashing and they sorted it out. We had mega pace for the race this morning. And to be honest I just got a little bit unlucky with catching Andrew in Race 2. But my intentions in the last race was not to just check out. And then I kept reading off very low 6s, and I thought do you know what, I'm comfortable, why not just keep doing it? I literally rode to my lap timer and saw I had a 4.5 s lead and I thought to myself, Tom, you do not need to win by 4.5s. You get the same points no matter what. I just watched my lap timer, watched my pit board, and rode to that.

Massive thanks to my sponsors that have obviously stuck by me with COVID. Our thoughts are with everyone that's being affected by it. We are very fortunate to be here able to race motorbikes. And we don't take it for granted. We miss the fans and I hope we put on a good show.”

Josh Brookes (VisionTrack Ducati #25)
Race 1, 3rd - Race 2, 6th - Race 3, DNF
“What can I say? Despite a podium, I wasn’t happy with the bike in Race 1, so we made some changes overnight. They really didn’t make a lot of difference in today’s opening race and I ended up making a couple of silly mistakes, so I’ll take the blame for that one. We had to change the bike again for the 3rd race and that worked as we were competitive, and had I got a better start; I think I could have gone with Tommy. And then I encountered the situation with Irwin. Glenn got past me fine, but Andrew touched me as he went past and down I went. These things happen so we move on and hope for better results at Snetterton.”

Christian Iddon (VisionTrack Ducati #21)
Race 1, 4th - Race 2, 8th - Race 3, 4th
“It’s been a big learning curve for me this weekend. Race 1 felt good and I was happy enough but in Sunday's opening race, I really struggled, especially in the last third of the race. The final race was better, and I was able to maintain a good pace. I was closing in on the leaders, but I made a minor mistake which let a couple of others past. From then onwards, I fell away and couldn’t manage a final push for the podium. Two 4th and an 8th isn’t what I want but we can work with those results. It’s 3 finishes, loads of data and no crashes so there’s room for improvement and my feeling with the bike is brilliant until the late stages of the race, so we just need to work on that and we’ll be somewhere near.”