BSB Round 2: Honda Racing opens its account at Donington Park

Tommy Bridewell

“It is what it is. We’ve certainly made some steps forward, and I was really happy with the step we made just before Qualifying, but we’re still just too far off the pace of the very front-runners at the moment. The race just highlighted that, really, we have another big step to go before we can get to where we need to be and unfortunately the crash was really my fault, just being greedy on the throttle to try and make up for where we’re currently losing out. So we’ve got to keep our heads down and chip away at it and that’s all we can do. I’m really lucky to get away without getting injured. I was going end over end over end through the gravel thinking ‘bloody hell!’ but I’ve just got sore hands and we can try again tomorrow.”

Andrew Irwin

“I think that the weekend so far has been a lot more positive than it might have been when you consider it’s barely a couple of weeks since my injury. In that light, getting eighth place in today’s race, my first race of the year, is something I’m pretty chuffed with quite honestly. The pace was good which puts us on the front two rows for the longer race tomorrow and we can look forward with an open mind. I’m really happy with my crew, everything’s working really well and after a good rest tonight I’m confident that we can keep building on what we’ve achieved so far and do a good job.”

Jack Kennedy

“It’s been positive. We maybe started this weekend off struggling for a bit of feeling from the bike but we worked that through as a team and that gave me what I was looking for. We got off the line really well at the start of the race, stayed in fourth place and we had a good battle going. I got up to second place but I found it really hard to hold on to that position, they kept slipstreaming back past, and then once the tyres dropped off I struggled to fight back to the bigger-engined bikes. It was a question of balancing the risk of trying to beat those bikes and maybe throwing it all off the road or to keep the bike in one piece, bank the points and try and work out a way forward. I decided for the more sensible option today but fourth place is not where I’m interested in finishing, so we’ll see what we can do tonight, come up with a plan, we’ve a few setup tweaks and then we’ll try to stick it on the podium tomorrow.”

Dean Harrison

“I was a bit frustrated that we lost the tow and couldn’t stay with the lead group. Harry Truelove in front of me started to fall back out of the slipstream a little bit so I tried to get past him and we had a bit of a coming together with another rider. We lost the tow from that, and on this circuit and a class as competitive as Supersport, it becomes a very big gap to bridge. But this whole weekend’s been fast and we’ve been up front on pace for the first time this year, so overall it is looking promising. Me and Jack have been working together really well, that’s been really good. Tomorrow is a longer race, so I will be looking at a few setup changes. We’ve been aggressive on the setup for Qualifying and you want something a bit different for the longer race, but we can certainly be optimistic.”

Team Manager Havier Beltran

“The Superbike team has worked hard as we were clearly lacking something in the performance of Tommy’s bike when we arrived at Donington Park, and the Free Practice sessions were spent getting him back on the pace. I think that his performance in Qualifying shows how great those strides were, and we’re glad that he and the bike should be able to continue that progress in tomorrow’s two races. Andrew meanwhile has performed exceptionally well so soon after his shoulder injury, and starts the second race from a great position. In Supersport, everything ran to plan and Jack was able to battle for the podium. Dean is really not far behind him on lap times and the longer race distance should be a positive factor for their second race tomorrow.”