Brad Ray finished the season with third place in the British Superbike Championship after a podium and points at the season finale.

The best result of the weekend came in the opening race of Sunday where he finished second taking his 18th podium of the season.

Friday at Brands Hatch brought early challenges for the McAMS Yamaha crew, with Ray finishing fifteenth and tenth in the opening two Free Practice sessions aboard the R1.  

Further set-up refinements helped the 29-year-old to sixth in the pivotal Pre-Qualifying session, securing a place in Qualifying 2 with a 1:24.845 to end the day. 

The McAMS-backed rider moved into Saturday with confidence after an improved feeling to close Friday, but he was determined to make further steps ahead of the weekend’s opening race. Qualifying proved a challenging session for the squad, ending with Ray ninth and work to do ahead of the 20-lap Race 1. 

A handful of significant changes to the R1 gave Ray the tools to stay close to the front-running group throughout Saturday’s 20-lap race. He finished a hard-earned seventh, which also secured an improved fifth-place grid position for Sunday’s Sprint. 

That improved starting spot left Ray well placed to mount a fierce attack at the front in the final Sprint Race of 2026. He entered podium contention on Lap 2 and set his fastest lap of the weekend on Lap 4 to claim provisional pole position for Race 3.  

Dropping back to fourth but refusing to settle, he fought back into second, passing Kyle Ryde for the runner-up spot at Starlings on Lap 10. The result gave the McAMS-backed rider his eighteenth podium of the season and a third-place start for the final race of 2026. 

Ray ended the weekend with a shortened, challenging 14-lap wet race, bringing the R1 home fourteenth while struggling to find confident grip around Brands Hatch. 

The team wrap up the year third overall in the standings with an impressive eighteen podiums, and head into the off-season hungry to begin preparations for a fight back in 2027. 

Speaking after the weekend, Ray said: “It’s been a tough season, to be honest. We didn’t expect the Ducati to be as strong as it has been, and we found that out around round one. That being said, we continued to refine the R1 this season, find an improved feeling, and prove that it’s still a package caple of fighting for podiums and wins.

“This season, it has been the case of cracking on, putting in the work with the team and trying to improve what we could. We put up a good fight throughout the year. I had a couple of wins, which were hard to come by this year, and we were always knocking on the door of the podium, with top fours and top fives too.

“The team have done a mega job. We’ve kept grafting, kept our heads down and kept working. I’m proud to take third in the championship. It’s not what we come here for, but when someone has a season like that, it’s hard to take it away from them. It’s been good, and I’m looking forward to next year already. Massive thanks to all our sponsors, and to Yamaha Motor UK for the support.”

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