Jason O’Halloran pushed until the very end at Cadwell Park today as he rode to a fourth-place finish in the BikeSocial Sprint Race in the eighth round of the 2023 Bennetts British Superbike Championship.

After a washout Saturday afternoon, conditions cleared up for Sunday morning’s free practice three session, which gave the McAMS Yamaha rider more dry laps as he looked to fine-tune the setting on his R1 machine.

However, the dry weather was short-lived as patchy showers began to fall during FP4, and with more scheduled for qualifying, BSB organisers took the decision to run the wet-weather Superpole format. Heading out for the 15-minute dash for pole position, the Australian caught traffic through Hall Bends, losing a bit of time on his fast lap.

As a brief shower returned mid-way through the session, O’Halloran sat fourth and would hold position until the death where he dropped to fifth ahead of the afternoon’s race.

Launching from the second row, the O’Show held position in the frantic opening laps before a retirement ahead moved him to fourth. Chasing the leading trio as more drops of rain briefly began to fall over the Lincolnshire venue, the number 22 rider continued to eat into the gap ahead, but struggling with a lack of rear grip, it would prove too big a task.

A heroic final lap saw the group of three quickly become a quartet, but despite his best efforts, couldn’t find the pass he needed to put him on the podium, crossing the line to end the 12-lap sprint in fourth.

O’Halloran’s late race pace looks promising for bank holiday Monday’s two 18-lap races, where he’ll line up sixth for race two at 13.15.