A bright start for Honda Racing at Thruxton

Tommy Bridewell

“It was just standard Thruxton, to be honest! It’s tough here, because there are so many factors to think about in your approach: do you push hard from the start or hold back and keep out of the way of the chaos! Track position is key. I got away decently, was happy enough in the lead, and just tried to settle into the race. But there was a lot of passing, a lot of movement, a lot of riders bumping into each other and you just had to settle and regroup. I picked my time to get going again and unfortunately I got a bit held up, which allowed the front three to get away, and that’s frustrating because I feel we’ve got podium pace here."

Andrew Irwin

“The weekend has gone quite well so far. Yesterday, in the second Free Practice session, we were unfortunate to have a little technical problem which meant that we weren’t able to go out and set a time on the soft tyre. That meant we had to go through both Qualifying sessions and so after going fastest in Q1 I had to use the old tyre in Q2. But it was a good race, I feel like I didn’t have quite as much left in the tyres as I needed at the end but a top five finish is good to have. Looking to tomorrow, we’ve got a few ideas to try out in Warm-up and then I think we can be even more positive in those two races.”

Jack Kennedy

“We rode the wheels off it today, and it’s frustrating that all we could bring home was a fourth place. It’s a good points-scoring result, of course. But really, starting from sixth on the grid, by the time I got through I’d already lost the slipstream of the lead group and had no way to reel them back in. I was really just trying to manage my race from that point, and we had a bit of a battle to hold that fourth place, so let’s hope that we can get through a bit quicker tomorrow. The plan is to get up there quicker and stick it on the podium.”

Dean Harrison

“Practice and qualifying have been good, but the race didn’t quite go to plan to be fair. I’m struggling in a couple of little areas that we need to improve for me to be able to run with the front group. The lap times that we can do, I feel they can put us in the lead group. But I’m struggling for consistency a bit, so there are a few little areas that I want to make better for tomorrow’s race. The longer distance of the Feature race will be better for me, and when the weather’s good, as it is today, it makes everyone’s life easier. It was a good battle for the whole race, but I want to be battling in the very front group and I don’t see why we can’t.”

Team Manager Havier Beltran

“It’s been a positive start to the weekend in many ways. All four bikes have completed their first races and come away with good points. It was a bit of a surprise to see how slow the pace was at the start of both races relative to last year. As ever at Thruxton, tyre management is critical to achieving success and we’ve got a few little setup changes that we are going to try which we hope will give a little bit more in the races tomorrow.”