Honda Racing opens its account at the BSB 2025 season finale

Jack Kennedy

“Crazy race - the pace was ridiculous! When you see 1m 27.2s on your dashboard, tenths under the lap record, I came in and asked if I had set a new lap record and they said: ‘no - and you’re not even on the front row of the grid for tomorrow!’ So, it was a tough race, a tough battle, but I rode the wheels off the Honda CBR600RR. The bike really kept telling me that it was on the limit but I had to keep pushing hard. I could see that my championship rivals were shaping up to have a go at each other on the last lap and I managed to get past one, but although I braked super-late into the last corner and then got on the gas so early and so hard, but we missed out by 0.30 seconds. It can still go any way tomorrow. A lot can happen and we’re all pushing so hard.”

Tommy Bridewell

“Qualifying was good: 1m 24.8s in those temperatures was strong for the bike, and it felt good. I was happy with that. In the race, I was just a little bit out of my depth, to be honest. It’s become quite apparent that the front group in the championship this year have got something more than us. But the racer in me just can’t accept that, so I just tried to push beyond the limit to keep in that lead group. It didn’t feel too bad out there, and sometimes you can get away with doing that, but on this occasion I just pushed the front too hard. We’re losing a lot of time coming off the corners which meant that I was trying to make up for it on the entry and couldn’t make it stick on that lap. It is what it is. It’s frustrating but we’ve just got to accept it. Being the top Honda at that point shows that we’re extracting the most out of the package, and if it is wet tomorrow that can be a bit more of a leveller. It can slow our competitors down and reduce the gap, which would be an interesting race for sure.”

Dean Harrison

“I’ve been enjoying it to be honest with you. Qualifying was a little bit frustrating, really, after just missing out on the Q2 session but the race wasn’t too bad. I was a bit frustrated that the group in front of us was able to get away a little bit and I feel like we had the pace that they had but we couldn’t reel them back in. But it’s a few more points on the board. The bike’s in one piece, so we’ll just keep learning as we go. It was nice to spend a whole race actually racing with people, passing each other, and now we’ll see what the weather holds tomorrow.”

John McGuinness MBE

“It’s been a busy weekend, a busy day today with two races and qualifying, I’m not normally used to that but it’s okay. In qualifying I had some space and it went okay. I feel like I’ve gone a bit backwards as the day’s gone on. I’m not aggressive enough at the start and let myself get beaten up a bit and drop back. We’re on points-scoring pace, so we just have to get stuck in a bit because you can’t afford to give these lads any time. Everybody’s fighting for something, so we’ll just go again tomorrow.”

Team Principal Neil Fletcher

“We’ve got just one day remaining in the 2025 season and once again the team has dug deep throughout this final weekend. We had some repairs to make, some puzzles to solve, and as ever the guys have got on top of them. Jack’s race was sensational and we are still in there for the championship. If it goes our way it will be an incredible achievement but if not I think it’s clear that every ounce of effort has been put into the attempt.”