Pole positions at Snetterton for Honda Racing UK
Snetterton 300
Honda Racing UK's Glenn Irwin and Tom Neave set the pace at Snetterton today in both the British Superbike and National Superstock qualifying sessions claiming consecutive Pole positions aboard the Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP.
Leading the way throughout Friday's practice sessions topping the combined times, Honda's Superstock rider Tom had a sensational qualifying to set a Pole position lap time of 1:49.078, unofficially smashing the lap record on a Superstock machine at the Norfolk circuit.
Meanwhile in the Bennetts British Superbike Championship, Glenn claimed Pole position with a lap time of 1:46.354. For the afternoon’s 12-lap race he had a blistering start off the line and was holding the lead until the fifth lap when he made a mistake and crashed out of the race. Unhurt from the fall, Glenn will be back in action for tomorrow’s two Superbike races.
Glenn’s teammates Ryo Mizuno and Takumi Takahashi had a strong showing with Takumi finishing fourth in Q1 and going through into Q2 to qualify 15th. Dropping back during the opening laps of the race, he fought back through the pack to come home 14th, his best finish this season. While Ryo made progress from his starting position of 21st to finish just shy of the points in 16th place.
The team will be back in action tomorrow (Sunday 5 September) for two more Superbike races and the Superstock race of the weekend.
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Pole position today was good, I've been feeling good on the bike lately and I'm confident when we roll out on new tyres we can go as fast as anyone round here, if not faster. We know we have to improve the second half of the races and today we tried something different with a hard tyre, which felt good and I felt like I was controlling the pace. On lap five I made a really silly mistake, simple as that. I braked a bit deeper and it was a school boy error. We have two more races here tomorrow and I'm looking forward it, we're 12th on the grid but we've had some good rides on the Honda with lower grid positions so hopefully it's a day where we can make a lot of moves and finish higher up the pack.
We made some changes to the set-up for the race to improve, but we didn't go in the right direction. I made a bad start and it was a tough race chasing after the front group. I'm going to use the morning warm up and try to finish higher in the two races!
It was difficult to find a good rhythm until FP3 but in the qualifying session I was able to find a bit of a rhythm. In the race I tried to make rhythm and good pace up after start but I couldn’t push 100%. We will make changes tonight, and tomorrow I will push hard from the start.
Harv said to me in the garage before the session that Glenn had a pole position so there was no pressure, but it's a Honda thing so you've got to go and get pole now, so that's what I did! It definitely motivated me with Glenn doing that. We're both on a bit of a roll now with consecutive poles and we want to keep that form going. I love this place and we won here last year, we've got the Fireblade working amazing now and did the fastest ever lap on a Superstock bike, smashing the lap record and I'm absolutely ready to race tomorrow!