Ryuichi Kiyonari shook up round 4 at the weekend with a fantastic and well-deserved win. This is the first podium for Kiyonari on the new BMW machine and showed his dominance on the Knockhill Circuit. Competing in his first season with Buildbase BMW team having ended a long career at Honda, with who he gained 43 wins and 3 BSB titles, its an excellent start to this season.
It's fantastic to still see the competition is still highly contested and shows how some riders have the ability to steal the limelight away from Shane Byrne who has been dominating the championship so far.
Kiyonari was on track to gain a second win in race two but after taking the lead from Shakey Byrne a small mistake put him behind and Byrne capitalised heavily on this mistake. It goes to show quite how fragile the lead can be in the BSB this year and how close the competition really is. Makes for exciting racing for spectators around the world.
This is the first podium for a BMW machine in four years and for the Buildbase BMW team. We hope they keep the pressure on Shane Byrne and make this a thoroughly exciting title showdown