Under the probably unnecessary 2010 rules, British Superbikes has now entered the Showdown phase. In brief: only the top six can now win the title, and they’ve had their points broadly equalised.

Those six aren’t exactly who I would have predicted. Both HM Plant Honda riders – Ryuichi Kiyonari and Josh Brookes – are there, as expected, as is Tommy Hill on the Worx Suzuki. Michael Rutter (Riders Ducati) would have been a fair bet, but the surprise is that not just one, but both Relentless Suzuki riders – Michael Laverty and Alistair Seeley – are through. It’s Stuart Easton and James Ellison – both Swan Honda – who are conspicuous by their absence.

Anyway, who’s going to win? It was illustrative for the BTCC, so let’s have a look at a graph of cumulative points by race for each of the riders in the Showdown.

There’s an argument that anything could happen, as effectively only seven races will decide the championship. But what does the graph say?

It would be a brave man who would back Rutter, Laverty or Seeley: all three have been fairly consistent to date, rather than showing occasional bursts of point-scoring, which might suggest a potential upset over the remaining meetings.

But it’s almost unbearably close between the other three in the Showdown. Hill started strongly, had a bit of a dip, but is right back on form now. Brookes and Kiyonari both struggled early on. Brookes quickly improved and was the man benefiting most during Hill’s dip; Kiyonari took a bit longer to get up to speed, but is probably the man with most momentum right now.

But my hunch? Brookes.