Glenn Irwin won’t give up on his ambition of winning the British Superbike Championship and firmly believes he will lift the title ‘someday’.
The Hager PBM Ducati rider still holds an outside chance of becoming the first rider from Northern Ireland to become BSB champion after clinching his eighth victory of the 2024 season on Sunday at the penultimate Showdown round at Donington Park.
Irwin remains third in the Championship ahead of the finale at Brands Hatch (October 11-13) and is 46 points behind new title leader Kyle Ryde, who clinched a double on the OMG Grilla Yamaha to displace reigning champion Tommy Bridewell at the top of the standings, with just four points between them.
Irwin is realistically relying on mistakes from Ryde and Bridewell to have any chance of snatching the British crown, but even if his chance appears to have gone in 2024, the Carrickfergus man is convinced that it is only a matter of time before he realises his dream.
“We will win this Championship someday, I don’t know exactly when it is,” Irwin said.
“We’ll keep fighting, winning races, enjoying ourselves, and whatever comes at the end of the year will come.”
In a frenetic 12-lap Sprint race on Sunday, Irwin held off Bridewell and Ryde in the closing laps after trading blows with his chief title rivals.
He shattered the lap record on the Ducati Panigale on his way to victory by 0.241 secs over Bridewell, with Saturday’s race winner Ryde in third.
Irwin said: “It’s tough on the Ducati right now with the grip, but Donington have done an amazing job resurfacing it, and it just gives us something that we’ve lost with the change in regs this year.
“When we bring the best version of ourselves – me and the team included – we can achieve great things.
“It was so sweet because Kyle and Tommy are two of the best competitors on the grid right now, and I think us three are in a great moment.
“To fight tooth and nail like that and come out on top, you feel like you’ve won a heavyweight boxing match.”
Ryde completed a double to bolster his title bid in the final race, which he won by 0.384 secs from Danny Kent (McAMS Yamaha), with Ryan Vickers (OMG Grilla Yamaha) third ahead of Irwin and Bridewell.
Andrew Irwin (Honda Racing UK) twice finished sixth on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Rea endured another challenging weekend on the Pata Prometeon Yamaha in the World Superbike Championship.
The six-time world champion finished 12th in the Superpole race and 13th in the final race.
Rea was making his comeback from injury following a crash at Magny-Cours in France three weeks previously.
The 37-year-old – 14th in Saturday’s first race – is now 14th in the Championship with two rounds remaining as his struggles in his first season on the Yamaha continue.
“Super difficult end to the weekend – I didn’t make bad starts but had bad track position from Turn One and then lost positions on the back straight in quick succession,” Rea said.
“In the Superpole race, I had good pace at the end, I was going forward. But in the long race, I just had traffic and feel like with the Yamaha R1, you need a clear track to really take advantage of all its strong points.
“Of course, when you’re in traffic, you can’t do that, and then I was vulnerable on the back straight.
“I got stuck behind Remy (Gardner) for a few laps. He passed me and I tried to pass him back, and then his pace wasn’t fast enough to go with the group.
“Finally, when I got past him, I was able to make some inroads to (Axel) Bassani and (Michael Ruben) Rinaldi but, in the end, I just ran out of laps.
“Our pace wasn’t good enough, so it was a bit frustrating and a tough weekend overall.”
Alvaro Bautista won both races on Sunday on the factory Ducati from Toprak Razgatlioglu, who was returning from injury after sustaining a collapsed lung in a crash at Magny-Cours.
BMW star Razgatlioglu leads the title race by 39 points from Bautista’s team-mate Nicolo Bulega with two rounds remaining.