Mixed fortunes for Honda Racing UK at Brands Hatch
Brands Hatch GP
Glenn Irwin secured a top-ten finish in today's opening British Superbike race at Brands Hatch - where ninth place for Glenn aboard the Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP was the pick of the results.
Having qualified eighth earlier in the day, across the 16-lap race Glenn had made his way into sixth, but eventually slipped back to ninth where he crossed the line, with teammate Takumi Takahashi 17th, having made his way through the pack from his 24th grid place. Ryo Mizuno's race came to an early end after an issue with the gear shifter saw him pull in at the end of lap seven, where he was sitting 23rd, having made his way through from 27th.
Today was bittersweet for Tom Neave who qualified 19th in mixed conditions ahead of tomorrow's final Pirelli National Superstock Championship race. Tom's result from today doesn't reflect the pace he's had aboard the Fireblade in dry conditions, where on yesterday's combined practice times he was second fastest overall, and topped the time sheets in this evening's final free practice.
Tomorrow the team will be back in action at Brands Hatch, as the 2021 Bennetts British Superbike Championship draws to a close with the final two Superbike races and the deciding Superstock race.
Qualifying was good and we tried the new Pirelli rain tyre, but it wasn't what we expected and perhaps we needed a different setting, so a quick pitstop gave us the chance to try and get up there on the grid and we managed eighth. The race was good fun, and our pace at the end was quite comparable to the likes of Jason [O'Halloran] during the last few laps, which is a huge step from when we were here last time. The race was throughly enjoyable, I felt good, the shoulder is what it is and I'm starting to use my body to compensate the weakness, but it was enjoyable and was nice to be battling with the right riders at Brands Hatch.
It was an unfortunate opening race for us. I crashed early in FP2 yesterday, and today I had to retire from the race with a broken shifter. It's been a difficult session all weekend but tomorrow is the end of the season, and I'm looking forward to giving it my all.
I didn't have a good feeling during qualifying in the wet and I couldn't get a good lap time. In Race 1 we made some improvements with the swingarm that we've been using since the last race at Donington, and I was able to ride consistent lap times, although we still need more. Tomorrow for Race 2 I will start from a better grid position than today, so we will try to make even better steps.
We've had really good speed in the dry across the weekend and on the practice combined times we were second fastest, I felt really good and everything was working really well, but we got caught out in qualifying today. It was spitting for 3/4 of the session and dried up with about eight minutes to go, and unfortunately we didn't get the tyres swapped in time. No one was to blame - it was just one of those unfortunate things that hampered my qualifying position. On dry times we were second fastest and tomorrow we're starting the race 19th, which clearly doesn't reflect any of our speed or pace this weekend in the dry. My start position tomorrow will make an entertaining race, and we'll try to turn it into a positive.