Bradley Ray claimed his tenth win of the season this afternoon and his first win on the Brands Hatch GP circuit.

The win at his home circuit in front of his friends and family, saw him joined on the podium by his nan, and stretched his lead to 56 points over third place finisher Kyle Ryde.

Having got the hole shot he didn’t have things all his own way with Christian Iddon challenging in the first part of the race, Ryde then challenged in the middle part.

Scott Redding then came on strong in the final stages, registering the fastest lap of the race, but he just ran out of laps to challenge Ray who had built up enough of a lead to bring the Raceways Yamaha home for his first Brands Hatch GP circuit victory.

It is an impressive season so far for Ray with ten wins, a second and a third, he will start tomorrow’s sprint race from second on the grid.

Speaking after the race, a pleased Ray said: “At the start I was just setting a rhythm and pulled just a little bit of a gap, not a lot to feel safe. Mid race it got out a little bit more over a second and I had this sort of weird feeling with the bike that was like something was going to go wrong with it, and I did like two 26.0s in a row and that led to Scott (Redding) getting close to me at the end. It’s a stressful race watching the pit board every lap not sure if the time is going to be going up or coming down!

“Towards the end, I was watching the pit board and to be honest I had nothing left, I was giving it everything, especially the last three or four laps. It was a long race I didn’t properly look at my pit board until lap 12 and there was still eight laps of the race to go and I felt like I’d done an endurance race already!

“It was a tough race, Scott was strong at the end and Kyle (Ryde) was strong in the middle of the race and was closing in. I think tomorrow is going to be a big fight between all of us, we have a few small things to maybe improve for tomorrow, especially for the second part of the race. I am happy to finally get the first podium here on the GP track on a superbike and to make it a win is even more special.”

Images courtesy of British Superbike Championship