With just two rounds of this year’s British Superbike Championship remaining, it would take a brave man to bet against Kyle Ryde coming out on top with the Nitrous Coin/Nitrous Competitions Racing rider holding a 68-point advantage over fellow Ducati rider Scott Redding.
Three in a row for Ryde?
To say Ryde has put together an impeccable season would be an understatement. Out of the 27 races to take place so far, he’s won more than half of them – 14 – and finished on the podium in all but one of them. And in that race, he finished fourth.
Under a normal points-scoring season, he’d have all but wrapped up the title by now, but the BSB system has kept his rivals hopes alive although even they must realise the odds are stacked against them.
Ryde’s form has been metronomic and although he’s taken two successive titles, few would have expected his season to be as dominant as what it has been, particularly as it’s his first year on the Ducati after spending four years on the R1 Yamaha.
The 29-year old left no stone unturned over the winter months, putting in mile after mile on a Ducati road bike, as well as a R6 Yamaha and 250cc two-stroke, and that helped make him the sharpest rider on the grid when the season got underway.
He’s taken full advantage of that and the 29-year old is simply getting better and better. It’s just a shame the politics in racing mean it’s highly doubtful that his talents will see him get an opportunity in the World Superbike Championship.
Assen double but Redding still a distant second
Throughout the year, Redding and the Hager PBM Ducati have kept Ryde well within their sights, just 30 points between them after the sixth round. That crept up to 47 points at the conclusion of the next round at Thruxton where Ryde took two wins and a second, but it could well be the Cadwell meeting where Redding’s title challenge ended.
With his Grand Prix background, Redding had never competed at the tight and twisty Cadwell until his 2019 BSB campaign, when he took a best finish of fourth, and it’s the one venue that he’s yet to master. His return last year saw him take two top ten finishes, the best being seventh, and this year yielded another disappointing outcome.
It started well with a fourth in race one but ninth in race two was followed by a disastrous 15th in the final outing of the weekend. That put him 71 points adrift of Ryde and although he took two wins at Assen, he only pulled back three points on his rival in Holland, and his threat now must be considered distant.
Ultimately, Redding needs Ryde to have two DNF’s if he’s to take his second BSB title and given the stats detailed above about Ryde’s 2026 campaign, both in terms of his victory count and unerring consistency, that’s unlikely to happen.
Ray continues to hassle Ducatis
2022 Champion Bradley Ray (McAMS Yamaha) continues to be a thorn in the side of the Ducati brigade and although he remains rooted on two wins, he’s been in fine form of late with only Ryde scoring more points than him since round six at Oulton.
The last 12 races have seen Ray take nine podiums and he’s putting the R1 Yamaha in places where it shouldn’t be. If you look at the World Superbike Championship, the best Yamaha is down in 11th place overall and although the WSB bike is of a different, higher specification, it only serves to highlight the challenge currently facing Yamaha.
The title is already gone for Ray this year and trying to win races will be his main aim at the final two rounds at Donington Park and Brands Hatch. If he can do that, it will put a spring in his step ahead of 2027 when he’ll again line up for Steve Rodgers’ Yamaha team.
Best of the rest
Leon Haslam (Moto Rapido Ducati) currently sits in fourth overall after taking his sixth podium of the season at Assen, but few would argue that after Ryde, Redding and Ray, Ryan Vickers has been best of the rest in 2026, the Honda Racing rider doing things on the Fireblade that none of his fellow Honda riders can get anywhere near.
A year in the World Superbike Championship was always going to stand Vickers in good stead and so it’s proved. The Honda was difficult to ride at the first couple of rounds with the 27-year old often finishing in the sixth to tenth area but even then, he was comfortably outperforming the other Honda runners.
Front end chatter was a significant issue, but Vickers and the team worked tirelessly to erode the problem with round three at Knockhill being the turning point. Vickers was in the top five there and he’s never looked back since with 13 top five finishes in the following 18 races.
Four victories in five races, at Thruxton and Cadwell Park, mean only Ryde and Redding have won more this year and there’s now just five points separating Haslam and Vickers. The battle for fourth looks like it could go all the way to the final race of the season.
Cook and Bimota’s challenge fades
Only Ryde, Redding and Ray have finished on the podium more times than the AJN Steelstock bimota of Max Cook, the 23-year old having graced the top three on seven occasions including a full house at both Donington Park and Brands Hatch.
There were always going to be ups and downs this season though with the bike being run on the UK circuits for the first time, its characteristics favouring some circuits more than others. But their last top three finish was at that Brands meeting in July and there’ll no doubt be disappointed to have seen their season drift away.
Thruxton cost Cook dearly, a crash in race one ruling him out of the other two, and although the last round at Assen saw him claim a brace of fifths, he’s yet to truly show the form he had in the first half of the year. Despite his age, he has well over 100 BSB starts to his name now and although 2026 has been his best season so far, he perhaps would have hoped for more.
Team-mate Joe Talbot continues to experience the ups and downs of BSB, his first season seeing a combination of strong rides and rookie mistakes. Those mistakes have come when he’s shown superb pace only to fail to convert them into results – Assen being a prime example when he was fifth quickest in practice – but he’s learning on the job and has certainly shown his potential.
Skinner joins 2026 winner’s list
The Cheshire Mouldings/TAS Racing team switched from Ducati to Yamaha this year, primarily due to the costs of purchasing two new Ducatis, hoping to exploit the R1’s suitability to the UK circuits but the Ducati’s dominance has seen those hopes extinguished.
Rory Skinner has strung together a consistent season though and his efforts were rewarded at Cadwell when he claimed second in qualifying. He should have come away with more than the one race victory he took but it was a milestone of sorts as it was his first BSB victory away from his home round of Knockhill.
Mistakes in the other two cost him a truly great weekend and Assen was also a mixed affair. His sixth and eighth place finishes sandwiched a DNF in the Sprint race when an oil hose split on the warm up lap, spraying oil onto the rear tyre and causing a high-speed fifth gear crash. Fortunately, Skinner was unharmed whilst the rest of the field avoided any mishap.
Team-mate Danny Kent continues to battle hard with two top ten finishes at Assen moving him up to eighth in the championship standings, one place but 78 points behind Skinner.
Tough year
As always, the BSB series features several riders who’ve been on the scene for a long time, riders with more than 200 – or in the case of some, 400 – BSB race starts. Calling them stalwarts might not be the appropriate phrase as they’re still competitive, but it’s been a tough year for many.
The likes of Ryde’s team-mate Glenn Irwin, Sencat Yamaha’s Christion Iddon, the second Honda Racing machine of Jason O’Halloran and the DAO Racing duo of Lee Jackson and Josh Brookes have all struggled throughout 2026.
Those five riders have a whopping 1670 BSB starts between them and 365 podiums but not one of them has graced the rostrum this season. Indeed, fifth is the best finish any of them have had and with just 11 top six finishes for the five riders, it shows how difficult a year it’s been.
Former double champion Brookes hasn’t graced the top six at all this season as he, along with fellow Honda riders Jackson and O’Halloran have found the bike, and grip, lacking. Only Vickers, a rider arguably in his prime, has featured on the Honda.
Iddon, meanwhile, would have been delighted to have got on the Yamaha for the first time given its previous results, but the timing’s simply been wrong for him as the R1 has been outclassed. And Irwin must be the unluckiest rider on the grid with countless mechanical failures whether in practice or the races – when team-mate Ryde has had none.