Honda Racing opens 2025 road racing season at North West with a brace of podiums

Race Report Friday 9th May 2025

The first two days of track action at this year’s North West 200 road race, the traditional season-opener for the discipline, have brought strong performances from the Honda Racing team. Riders John McGuinness MBE, a six-time winner of the event, and British Superbike Championship Supersport class regular Dean Harrison, have started strongly across the Superstock, Supersport and Superbike categories.

The 8.97-mile (14.44 km) Triangle circuit of public roads that lie between Portstewart, Coleraine and Portrush, which first hosted the event in 1929, has been bathed in sunshine throughout the first two days of the event. Honda Racing has enjoyed faultless reliability from all five motorcycles on the team strength and delivered strong performance from its array of Honda CBR600RR and Honda Fireblade machinery.

In qualifying for the senior Superbike class, McGuinness set the eighth fastest time in his first competitive session of the year on the Honda Fireblade, while Harrison provisionally topped the time sheets on the sister machine and ended the session in second place.

The second qualifying session brought a similar result, with Harrison setting the pace until the final minutes, when he was pushed down to third place, while McGuinness secured a creditable ninth position on the grid.

Harrison is contesting the Supersport category as Honda Racing’s lone challenger on the Honda CBR600RR, while McGuinness focuses his efforts on the larger engine capacity classes. The first qualifying session of the weekend netted second place for the Yorkshire-born road racer, while an emphatic pole position was the result in the second session.

Finally, both Harrison and McGuinness are competing in the close to showroom-specification Superstock class on their Honda Fireblades. Due to a number of red flag delays during Wednesday’s track sessions, resulting in a single Superstock qualifying run on Thursday’s revised schedule which put Harrison fourth and McGuinness ninth.

A balmy late spring evening awaited the first three races of the North West 200 on Thursday, starting with the senior Superbike class. Harrison made a bold play to take the early lead before slipping back in the slipstreaming battle to finish third overall for his 11th career podium at the event, while McGuinness claimed eighth.

Next came the opening Supersport encounter, from which the lone Honda CBR600RR of Harrison emerged in fourth place.

It was left to the Superstock race to close out the opening day’s action, and while Harrison got away cleanly it was the lightning start of McGuinness that sent the huge crowd wild as he climbed to fifth overall. As the race settled down, Harrison was tracking the lead battle and gained second place on the second lap - a position which he held to the finish.

McGuinness meanwhile was in the thick of the action, slipping back through the pack to 11th place and then using all his savvy and racecraft to move up once more, claiming ninth as the chequered flag fell.

There will now be a rest day before the roads close once again on Saturday for a full schedule of racing.

John McGuinness MBE

“To be fair it’s just competitive - super, super hard. There was a gap for me at the start of the Superstock race and I thought ‘you beauty!’ but overall I just don’t want to let anyone down. It was nice to run close to Dean at the start of the Superstock race; he’s riding exceptionally well, he’s riding so hard, and while I feel bike-fit there’s still a little bit more to come. We can sleep on it tonight and come up with a plan tomorrow. I think that we can close the gap a bit. It’s a hard track, this, and I’m not at my best yet but I’m chipping away and enjoying the riding. The bikes have been good in every session and never missed a beat, I’m so lucky to be here, doing this, that I just want to do my best.”

Dean Harrison

“Supersport didn’t really go to plan, I just couldn’t get in the slipstream. In Superstock and Superbike I just chipped my way through. It’s just so tight out there that it’s really only a couple of little things that could make a big difference. Everybody’s on it, totally committed, but we’re in a good place. I’ve certainly had many worse Thursdays than this - we’ve had lots of sunshine and a couple of podiums, the team’s happy, so we’re in a good place. There’s more to come from me and the bikes, I know it’s there. The crowd is unreal around this track, they’re absolutely everywhere and it’s a pleasure to be here. It’s unlike anything else.”

Team Manager Havier Beltran

“Two podiums from three races is a positive start to the North West 200 and both Dean and John should be proud of what they have accomplished. The entire team has delivered five motorcycles that have shown pace and consistency throughout both of the first two days and worked tirelessly to hone the handling of the machines to where our riders are confident to push on. We have clear goals to achieve for the remainder of the races and our riders have justifiably high expectations. Road racing is unique and special, and I think that is reflected in the work that is being done here this weekend. The team is rising to the occasion.”