Honda Racing in the thick of the action at Brands Hatch

Making its first appearance of the 2025 season on the Brands Hatch GP circuit in Kent, the Honda Racing team has enjoyed a competitive start to the weekend in both the Bennetts British Superbike Championship (BSB) and Quattro British Supersport Championship classes.

This weekend, the team’s four riders across the two classes have also been joined by 23-time Isle of Man TT winner John McGuinness MBE, who is racing a Honda Fireblade in the Superstock class under the Honda Racing UK banner.

The BSB team saw Tommy Bridewell and Andrew Irwin honing the performance of their Fireblades to the undulating Brands Hatch circuit through Friday’s Free Practice sessions. The fruits of these sessions were seen on Saturday morning, when Bridewell set the third fastest time with Irwin in fourth.

The Qualifying session saw light rain and a significant drop in temperatures confront the riders, with Bridewell taking a second row starting position for the first race, in sixth place, while Irwin qualified 11th.

These would also be the positions in which the riders took the chequered flag at the end of the first 20-lap encounter. Bridewell settled quickly into a rhythm and was able to maintain the gap to his nearest pursuer. Irwin meanwhile charged up to eighth by the mid-point of the race, but then fell back to 11th after a few minor issues took hold.

In Supersport, defending champion Jack Kennedy qualified his Honda CBR600RR in second place for the first race on Saturday afternoon. His five-time Isle of Man TT-winning team mate Dean Harrison claimed ninth place on the grid.

At the start of the race, Kennedy got away cleanly into the early lead, slipped back to second and then retook the lead before crashing out in the treacherous conditions. Harrison’s race was less dramatic, finishing in ninth place but securing sixth fastest lap time to start race 2 from the second row of the grid.

In his solo Superstock weekend, meanwhile, McGuinness meanwhile ran strongly throughout the Free Practice sessions. In qualifying for the race in 12th position, he comfortably beat his previous personal best ever lap time at the circuit, then rode a sensible race in damp but drying conditions to reach the finish in 14th place.

Tommy Bridewell

“Tough race for sure. I expected and wanted to have the pace to fight for the podium but I’m just still struggling with the bike to be honest. Just an immense amount of wheelie, really struggling with stopping the bike and rear grip. There’s not one specific area, it’s across all areas, so we need to go back to the drawing board for tomorrow, regroup and try again. I would prefer a dry race because at the minute we need dry track time and our testing has to be over a race weekend, which is not ideal, but it’s where we find ourselves. If it’s wet we’ll deal with it.”

Andrew Irwin

“I felt good for three-quarters of the race, and we started to get closer to the group in front. Then I just ran into a couple of little problems the last few laps, but hopefully we can find a resolution for tomorrow and look forward to tomorrow’s two races. It was a little bit all over everywhere with the weather before the start, but it was a dry race. I think my lap time was a tenth off my best in qualifying, and I’m pleased with my pace, so I think tomorrow we can go forward from there.”

Jack Kennedy

“It was probably my best start in the last two years on the bike, really, so I was quite happy with that, but it was so greasy, it was like riding on eggshells or marbles or ice… or all three together. But I think everyone was in the same boat, though. Ben (Currie) got away at the start and I tried to just settle into it and get some sort of feel. I managed to peg him back and then got to the lead but unfortunately took the front in the tricky conditions into Graham Hill Bend. It’s given the lads in the team a lot of work to do for tomorrow repairing the bike. We’ve got a really mixed up grid for tomorrow so it’ll be an interesting one to watch.”

Dean Harrison

“I think we had the worst conditions of the day, to be honest! We had a little issue before the start, the battery went flat I think, so we were really lucky that the boys were able to get the bike started and we could get on the grid. I was struggling, it was really greasy, but we sort of got quicker as the race went on and we moved up to start sixth on row two tomorrow so all in all it was a reasonable day.”

John McGuinness MBE

“I’m really happy to have my personal best lap time at Brands Hatch, and to finish in the points at my first BSB weekend of this season. It was a brilliant start but I got nipped a bit at Turn 1 and I thought: ‘oh, this is not going to be good!’ But we got away with it. I’ve done loads of riding – testing before the start of the year, track days and instructing as well as competing at the North West 200 and TT. But this is very different and you’ve got to dig deep and pull yourself out of your comfort zone. To be here enjoying my riding, and working with my kids on the team, and to be in the mix with some spicy riders has fully ticked all the boxes for me. I shall go home a happy man.”

Team Manager Havier Beltran

“An awful lot of work has been done over the first two days, and it’s slightly frustrating in some ways that the weather played such a wild card today. That said, it was the same for everyone and I think Tommy rode well through the challenges, with Andrew’s pace being impressively close to his in the race. Jack has a bigger job to do tomorrow now, but he knows when and how to dig deep, while it will be good to see Dean starting further up the grid tomorrow. And of course John has done what he has consistently done this year: beaten his own records and enjoyed competing at the highest level.”

A testing Sunday for the team at Brands Hatch

The closing day of Round 5 of this year’s Bennetts British Superbike Championship (BSB) and Quattro British Supersport Championship at Brands Hatch served up an array of challenges for Honda Racing.

Dry weather conditions before the weekend’s second BSB race gave cause for optimism, with Tommy Bridewell’s Honda Fireblade on the second row of the grid in sixth place and team-mate Andrew Irwin just one place behind.

However, Bridewell flicked into a high-side crash as he accelerated out of Clearways bend at the end of the third lap, leaving Irwin, who had been running close behind, to race onward to an eventual seventh place.

After a visit to the medical centre for a comprehensive check-up, Bridewell withdrew from the final race of the weekend as a precaution. This left Irwin to fly the flag for Honda Racing on a track which had damp patches, and it was the variable grip level that caught him out and triggered a violent crash, from which he emerged uninjured.

In the weekend’s second Supersport race, heavy rain fell before the start, making tyre choices a lottery. Dean Harrison, starting his Honda CBR600RR from the second row, opted to go with wet tyres front and rear but, soon after the start, the rain eased and forced him to maintain a slower pace than those on wet front/intermediate rear tyres.

Among those on the optimum combination was defending champion Jack Kennedy, who started 15th after crashing out of the lead in Race 1 on Saturday. He climbed to sixth by the chequered flag, followed by Harrison in 12th.

Finally, the Honda Racing UK entry of 23-time TT winner John McGuinness MBE enjoyed another strong performance in the Superstock race. Starting 19th, McGuinness was in the thick of several battles before crossing the line in 17th place.

Tommy Bridewell

“It was a painful end to a disappointing weekend. I’m taking a lot of chances on the bike at the moment because the gap between us and the fastest guys isn’t getting any smaller no matter what we do. It’s massively frustrating, there’s very little else to say about where we are currently, but we will keep working to find a solution.”

Andrew Irwin

“The weekend was going entirely to plan, we were building off the back of finishing all three races at Knockhill and just chipping away at lap times and letting the lap times and the results come to us. In the third race, I felt completely comfortable in sixth place. I was in the lead pack and just looking to see what sort of opportunity might arise when out of nowhere, so it seemed, I was suddenly thrown quite a long way up off the bike, which was totally destroyed. It’s a big disappointment.”

Jack Kennedy

“If you look at the progression from 15th on the grid to sixth it’s good in those tricky conditions. I had to ride within myself and not risk going down, because after crashing out yesterday we just had to bring it home. I certainly didn’t want to wreck another bike after the lads worked so hard to build me a new one last night and again replacing the frame today between warm-up and the race. Massive thanks to them for all their work. We’ve had such bad luck with the weather, it rained heavily immediately before each of our races, and made things very tricky. We’ll take the positives out of it and move on to Thruxton.”

Dean Harrison

“The weekend as a whole hasn’t been too bad. We definitely had the worst of the weather conditions in Supersport, compared to every other class on the schedule this weekend. Still, I scored points in both races and while the positions haven’t been ideal it has been a bit of a lottery. Tyre choice was crucial today but the bike’s in one piece and it’s got to be onwards and upwards from here.”

John McGuinness MBE

“For me, it’s good news. Being in the mix for points and battling away with these younger guys was good. It was good racing, no paint was traded, and in the end I went faster again in this race than I did yesterday. I went faster over a lap yesterday than I ever have before at Brands Hatch and today the overall race time was faster, so that’s progress. The bike’s never missed a beat across all the sessions of the weekend and I kept it on its wheels, so it’s wins all round for us, really.”

Team Manager Havier Beltran

“It’s been a particularly challenging weekend for us at a circuit where traditionally Honda performs strongly. In Supersport, Jack’s team really had their work cut out after his crash on Saturday. First of all the bike had to be rebuilt to get it on track on Sunday morning for Warm-up, when it became clear that actually the core of the bike, the frame, needed replacing, so they had to strip it and effectively build a new bike in two hours. Seeing the team rise to challenges like this gives confidence that we can push through an event like this and come out fighting at the next round.”