British Superbikes Round 9 TT Circuit Assen

BSB Assen Combined Qualifying.

Qualifying at Assen’s round nine of the British Superbike Championship wasn’t so much a session as it was a duel fought with stopwatch batteries. Bradley Ray #28, with the smug confidence of a man who’d already topped Friday’s sheet, wrung every last ounce from his Yamaha to smash the lap record with a scorching 1m35.529s. Cue pole. Cue smug grin.

Scott Redding #4, freshly reacquainted with Assen from his WSBK cameos, thought he’d already sealed it by lowering the benchmark himself – only for Ray to nick it back in the final minutes. The gap between them? A blink, then a millimetre, then 0.022s. For Redding, pole was snatched not by pace, but by a familiar irritant: Josh Brookes, acting like a mobile chicane on the Ducati.

Charlie Nesbitt #86, did what every good racer does – follow a faster bike until the lap timer panics – and nicked third for MasterMac Honda. Behind, Kyle Ryde bounced back from Friday fiddles to bag fourth, just ahead of teammate Glenn Irwin, who lobbed his Yamaha down the road at Turn 9 but still held onto fifth.

The ever-durable Leon Haslam #91, who probably has his own postcode here by now, clocked the fastest FP3 lap before calling it a day for sixth. Christian Iddon bullied the AJN Kawasaki up to seventh, with John McPhee finally showing rookie teeth, hauling his Honda into eighth with the look of a man who’d just discovered setup notes actually matter.

Tommy Bridewell and Danny Kent both went missing in action, lining up behind in ninth and tenth. Brookes, meanwhile, dragged his DAO Racing machine to a weary 13th.

In short: Ray broke the records, Redding broke into a sulk, and everyone else broke out the excuses. Classic BSB.

BSB Assen Combined Qualifying Timing results:

Pos 1. No.28 Brad Ray

Pos 2. No. 4. Scott Redding

Pos 3. No. 86. Charlie Nesbitt

Pos 4. No.1. Kyle Ryde

Pos 5. No.2. Glenn Irwin

Pos 6. No. 91. Leon Haslam

BSB Assen Race 1

Scott Redding blasted to victory in a stop-start opener at BSB Assen, bagging half-points and PBM Ducati’s 150th British Superbike success after the race was twice red-flagged by miserable conditions.

Redding wasted no time off the line—straight to the front, briefly mugged by Kyle Ryde, and then back in charge before you could blink. The 2019 champ started stretching his legs, while behind him it turned into a demolition derby of title hopes. Christian Iddon looked threatening until he hurled his Kawasaki wide at Turn 1, Leon Haslam inherited second, Max Cook binned it, and Bradley Ray punted his championship further into the gravel.

The red flag finally drew the curtain, scrapping the planned restart once the Dutch skies did their worst. That left Redding sipping the champagne in first, Haslam #91 a wily runner-up, and Danny Kent #52 rebounding with a gritty third. Charlie Nesbitt nabbed fourth, Iddon salvaged fifth after his detour, and Ryde—still championship leader despite the chaos—rolled home in sixth with a handy points cushion.

Crowd-pleaser Jaimie van Sikkelerus delivered a career-best seventh on home tarmac, John McPhee and Luke Hedger hustled their Hondas into the top ten, and Glenn Irwin rounded them out. Not exactly a classic—but as Redding proved once again, sometimes it’s about surviving the storm faster than the rest.

BSB Assen Race 1 Results:

Pos 1. No. 4. Scott Redding

Pos 2. No. 91. Leon Haslam

Pos 3. No. 52. Danny Kent

Pos 4. No. 86. Charlie Nesbitt

Pos 5. No.21. Christian Iddon

Pos 6. No. 1. Kyle Ryde

BSB Assen Race 2

Christian Iddon #21, finally cracked the winner’s circle in 2025, splashing his AJN Steelstock Kawasaki to victory at a sodden Assen — his first of the season, and one that looked more like a prize fight than a motor race.

He rocketed off the line, ducked and dived through the drizzle, and never let the lead slip — much to the annoyance of Bradley Ray, Max Cook, and Charlie Nesbitt behind. If that sounded straightforward, it wasn’t. Because from 18th on the grid came Rory Skinner #11, storming through the field like he’d been personally insulted by the weather gods, planting his Ducati in third by lap five and hustling Iddon all the way to the final chicane.

Ray had a point to prove too after yesterday’s crash, shadowing the pair and nicking a podium that clawed back ten points on title rival Kyle Ryde — whose race was rather more “disaster-recovery” than “defence-of-champion”. From 11th, he salvaged eighth at the flag.

Scott Redding’s Race 2 at Assen could best be summed up as watching a lion try to sprint in flip-flops. For the first half he looked menacing, stalking the pack with that trademark aggression, and then—bang—the tyres decided they weren’t up for a Dutch holiday at all.

Grip fell away faster than a pint of Heineken on a hot day, leaving Redding wrestling the bike like it was a runaway shopping trolley. Instead of charging forward, he was condemned to hanging on grimly, a rider of his calibre made to look mortal by two circles of tortured rubber. It wasn’t bravery that limited him, but the tyre’s least flattering impersonation of an eraser under exam stress.

Meanwhile, Tommy Bridewell #46 decided Honda’s weekend didn’t need to be completely boring, snatching fourth from Leon Haslam late on, while Fraser Rogers sneaked TAG Honda back into relevance with seventh. Nesbitt held onto sixth, John McPhee pinched tenth, and Storm Stacey was left storming about losing eighth on the final lap.

As for Iddon? In the rain, he looked ruthless. And after a year of “almosts”, his big green Kawasaki finally looked like it meant business.

BSB Assen Race 2 Results:

Pos 1. No.21. Christian Iddon

Pos 2. No. 11. Rory Skinner

Pos 3. No.28 Brad Ray

Pos 4. No. 46. Tommy Bridewell

Pos 5. No. 91. Leon Haslam

Pos 6. No. 86. Charlie Nesbitt

BSB Assen Race 3

Scott Redding livened up Assen with a double dose of Ducati brilliance, clinching his second Bennetts British Superbike win of the weekend in a final lap brawl so tense it ought to have come with its own health warning. The Hager PBM Ducati star was locked in a three-way, elbows-out slugfest with Leon Haslam and Yamaha’s Kyle Ryde, slicing and dicing through backmarkers and rivals with all the subtlety of a chainsaw at a souffle convention. 

The race itself was a meteorological comedy: dry start, torrential shower, red flag, then a reset that shuffled the pack more than a Jeremy Clarkson gearbox on a hill start. Out went early pacesetters Christian Iddon and Storm Stacey #79, leaving Ryde—championship leader with a 31-point cushion over Bradley Ray and an ego only slightly less inflated than his rear tyre—heading the charge at the restart. 

With the pack reassembled, Haslam, Ryde, Bridewell, and Redding traded places like bad socks at a car boot sale. Bridewell muscled his Honda past Stacey, while Ray and the other championship hopefuls scrapped frenetically to avoid dropping vital points as Oulton Park looms on the horizon. 

Up front, Ryde led but Redding was having none of it, unleashing the full Ducati arsenal in a livery fresh enough for its own birthday bash. Haslam lunged to the front, Ryde bit back, but Redding seized the lead at turn one, holding the pair off to seal the deal—seconds ahead, but miles more spectacular. 

Behind the front trio, Bridewell kept Honda’s flag flying in fourth, Stacey and Ray rounded out the top six, and Nesbitt, Skinner, Rogers, and Irwin completed a top ten as frantic as a Clarkson review after a missed lunch. As the circus rolls into Oulton Park, Ryde holds his title hopes on a 31-point lead, but if Assen taught us anything, it’s that anything—and everything—can. 

BSB Assen Race 3 Results:

Pos 1. No. 4. Scott Redding

Pos 2. No. 91. Leon Haslam

Pos 3. No. 1. Kyle Ryde

Pos 4. No. 46. Tommy Bridewell

Pos 5. No. 79. Storm Stacey

Pos 6. No.28 Brad Ray

Championship Position after Round 9

Position 1. Kyle Ryde (Yamaha). 371 points

Position 2. Bradley Ray (Yamaha). 346 points

Position 3. Rory Skinner (Ducati). 258 points

Position 4. Leon Haslam (Ducati). 258 points

Position 5. Christian Iddon (Kawasaki). 240 points

Position 6. Tommy Bridewell (Honda). 218 points

Position 7. Danny Kent (Yamaha). 213 points 

Position 8. Scott Redding (Ducati). 182.5 points

Position 9. Max Cook (Kawasaki). 177 points

Then … And Next

Scott Redding stormed through BSB Assen with two big wins, collecting silverware like a magpie at a motorway service station. Kyle Ryde might not have claimed victory in Holland, but remains championship leader with a solid points advantage, his Yamaha still very much in championship contention as the pack heads to Oulton Park. 

With the next showdown set for the Cheshire rollercoaster at Oulton Park, unpredictability reigns: Redding has found a purple patch, Ryde leads the statistics, Ray seems relentless, and anyone inside the top six could fancy themselves a title contender. If the weather’s wild, the action will be, too—and you’d better buckle up, because BSB’s about as subtle as a fireworks factory in the path of a lightning storm. 

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