Honda Racing concludes Donington Park weekend

Race Report Monday 8th September 2025

Round 8 of the 2025 Bennetts British Superbike Championship (BSB), and Quattro British Supersport Championship at Donington Park ended with Honda Racing taking away valuable points and experience for the rest of the season.

The BSB riders faced a three-race schedule for the day, with Andrew Irwin lining up his Honda Fireblade for the first of these 12-lap sprints in fifth on the grid, following his strong performance on Saturday.

Team-mate Tommy Bridewell started from seventh and both riders got away cleanly as the 25-strong field jostled for position in the early laps. Ultimately, the two Fireblades crossed the finish line with Irwin maintaining his fifth place and Bridewell finishing eighth.

Sunday’s second race repeated the team’s grid order with Irwin starting from fifth and Bridewell seventh. Rainfall shortly before the race made for tricky track conditions, and it was Irwin who got caught out on the third lap, crashing at the Goddards chicane. Bridewell had no similar issue and crossed the finish line in seventh place.

The BSB medical team declared Irwin fit to start the final race of the day, but after further consideration, Honda Racing elected to withdraw him in order to help facilitate a full recovery before the next round of the series. Bridewell started from seventh on the grid, climbed as high as fifth in the pitched battle that raged throughout the race, but crossed the line in an eventual eighth place.

The Supersport contenders had just one race after their opening encounter on Saturday, with Dean Harrison starting from fifth place on his Honda CBR600RR and team-mate Jack Kennedy sixth.

At the start, Kennedy got up inside Harrison, who was then caught among the riders on the outside of him. When they emerged from the first corner, Kennedy held fourth place while Harrison had dropped back to 25th.

As is habitually the case in Supersport, the lead group swapped position relentlessly throughout the race, with Kennedy taking the lead for several laps. In the end, the defending champion was forced to cede the top position, but claimed his second podium finish of the weekend in third place, further tightening the three-way points battle for this year’s title.

Harrison meanwhile delivered an inspired ride up through the field and would record an impressive 12th place finish.

Both series will resume when they travel to Assen in the Netherlands for their first visit to the venue since 2019, with Round 9 being held on September 19-21.

Tommy Bridewell

“It’s no secret that there is no configuration that we haven’t tried for me to find that ‘thing’ I need from the bike to consistently challenge for wins. We’re in that group just off the podium battle at the moment, and it doesn’t matter if we go hard or soft or high or low or long or short, we just can’t quite get there yet. It’s been a challenging weekend from that perspective and we just need to keep fighting hard, keep up the morale and find a solution. We will just have to see what we can do for Assen.”

Andrew Irwin

“I said before the weekend that we just had to keep a level head and not get too excited and two fifth places were good results in the first two races of the weekend. The team has really been working hard, they built me a great bike again this weekend and sorry to them not to complete the weekend at Donington. I just got caught out by the damp in race 3 and I paid the price for it. I’ve got a little niggle as a result of that crash, so now we’ll take some time and heal up a bit and get ready for Assen.”

Jack Kennedy

“I’m quite happy with my performance this weekend. They were two great races and we were in there fighting for the win, we’ve been leading races here at Donington, but just didn’t have enough in the end. It can be a bit frustrating but at the end of the day a podium is a good result. With eight bikes in the battle, nobody’s guaranteed anything out there, so I’m happy that I gave it 110%. The team improved the bike overnight so that’s credit to them and something we can take on to Assen. I’m excited for that one, and I’m positive about going there with the Honda CBR600RR, and in the championship we know what we need to do.”

Dean Harrison

“I think we had the pace to do better than we did. Unfortunately, there was a bit of an altercation at the start, but that’s racing I suppose. The positives are that we’ve shown the pace to run at the front all this weekend. The team’s good, we’ve made some improvements with the bike, so we’ll just have to carry that progress forward for the rest of the year. I’m looking forward to going to Assen, I enjoyed it last time I was there and it’s been quite a few years so I think we’re in a good position to challenge again there.”

Team Principal Neil Fletcher

“It has been a unique challenge for the team to have four BSB races to contend with, and they delivered to ensure that our riders were in the thick of the action all weekend. Andrew’s promising performances were sadly cut short, but Tommy extracted everything that he could this weekend and brought home valuable points. In Supersport, Jack’s double podium this weekend was extremely important for his title hopes, while Dean’s performance overall continues to impress.”