A solid start for Honda Racing at Donington Park

Honda Racing has enjoyed a solid start to Round 8 of the 2025 Bennetts British Superbike Championship (BSB), and Quattro British Supersport Championship at Donington Park, with hopes of more to come.

This weekend marks the second and final competitive visit to Donington for both series, with lap speeds increasing over their previous visit to the Leicestershire venue in May. Adding to the unique atmosphere, a four-race schedule has to be undertaken by the BSB riders in order to complete all points-scoring races before the final three-round Showdown for the championship.

Tommy Bridewell and Andrew Irwin spent the BSB’s first two Free Practice sessions on Friday honing their Honda Fireblades to the cool, dry conditions. Then, after the 10-minute FP3 on Saturday morning, they rode out to lay down a marker in Qualifying.

Irwin ended the session in fifth place on the grid, while Bridewell could not improve on 12th, despite the margin between the two Hondas being just 0.359 seconds.

Starting from the second and fourth rows of the grid respectively, the two Honda riders got away cleanly at the start. With Irwin getting straight into the podium battle, ultimately finishing in fifth place. Bridewell’s early gains were consolidated before he then worked his way through the field to seventh place before the race was stopped early for a red flag incident.

In the Supersport garage, defending champion Jack Kennedy ended Friday at the top of the timesheets after two Free Practice sessions on his Honda CBR600RR.His team-mate Dean Harrison also enjoyed a positive opening day on the sister machine and ended fourth on the time sheets, 0.173 seconds behind Kennedy’s best effort.

In Qualifying on Saturday morning, Kennedy once again topped the times at the mid-point of the session. In the end, the two Honda factory riders claimed fourth and fifth on the grid, with Kennedy ahead by just 0.051 seconds.

At the start of the race, Kennedy leapt forward into second and was soon in the lead. It was another fast and furious encounter, with the top riders changing places on almost every lap. In the end, the five-time champion emerged from the battle with a podium finish in third place, with Harrison in a commendable fifth.

Tommy Bridewell

“The gap between the qualifying times is so tiny, particularly between the second row to the fourth row, that it’s a frustration in itself. It’s annoying to be that close and yet then get stuck behind people at the start of the race. I’m still struggling to get the bike where I feel I need it to be as a rider, and that’s obviously what you can see at the moment with me starting on the fourth row. I got a good start but I think that I maybe tried to take a bit too much too fast and so then I had to sit back and take a more calculated approach and just work my way through. It’s frustrating that we could have been on the podium, I think we had the pace, but I just had to take the passing opportunities when they came and not force it. On the plus side, my lap times weren’t bad and I’ll be starting further forward tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll find a bit more in the bike, and maybe having three races can help us.”

Andrew Irwin

“It’s been a good start to the weekend. In Practice and Qualifying, I think we were able to work things through pretty methodically. It’s a solid start but I think we can continue to take steps forward in the three races on Sunday. We were in the fight for the podium early on today, and I think we can be there throughout the race tomorrow. We’ll be working on one or two things between now and the next race and will hope to build from where we are now.”

Jack Kennedy

“We got a good start from the second row, probably the best start we’ve had all year, and so I managed to make up a couple of places by Turn 1. We had a good fight, it was good to be fighting for the podium places and I actually felt pretty comfortable in the lead there as well. Unfortunately, we got passed a couple of times in the last two laps but we managed to finish on the podium, and I feel like we rode the wheels off the bike. I gave it absolutely everything. Overall, I’m happy with the result and my performance. We just need to start beating our championship rivals more often if we want to give ourselves a chance of the title.”

Dean Harrison

“We’ve gone stronger and stronger through the weekend, I think. I feel like I’m in the front group now in terms of my pace and in terms of wheel-to-wheel racing of the sort of intensity that you see in Supersport. My outright speed isn’t in question, I’m happy with my pace, but we’ve really focused on racecraft over the last couple of rounds and I do feel much stronger. So for tomorrow we’re starting in a good position again after another good lap time in the race, so we’ll go again and see where we end up.”

Team Principal Neil Fletcher

“Across both the Supersport and Superbike garages, the team has spent two days working hard on the package that our riders have, and already they are seeing a return. I think that both Superbike riders had podium pace today and have put themselves in a great position to deliver on that in Sunday’s races. In Supersport, Jack rode a great race and it was really encouraging to see him out in front for so much of it, while Dean’s impressive run of form continues.”

Honda Racing concludes Donington Park weekend

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.”