Honda Racing UK head to Cadwell Park this round for their home round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship looing to defend home territory as they bid to replicate their race-winning performance from last year.
Situated barely five miles by road from the Honda Racing factory, the team will be looking to have a strong performance for the home crowd, after Tommy Bridewell scored two podium finishes on his Honda Fireblade last year, including a victory in the second race.
This year, Bridewell has taken a hat trick of third place finishes, whilst team-mate Andrew Irwin has recovered well from an early season injury to now be racing wheel-to-wheel with his colleague.
Bridewell said: “It’s been a tough start to the season; the consistency we are struggling with and understanding the best direction to get the bike to work. My expectations are very high, understandably, from the previous years. We’ve obviously had good consistency through the course of the whole season, so it’s a difficult period for sure.
“I think Thruxton was looking to be potentially a stronger weekend for us. From Friday, we had strong pace and then on Saturday we didn’t go drastic, we just tweaked the bike a bit, and for qualifying and then the first race I was fairly happy, coming home in fourth. We then made some changes to the bike for Sunday, and frustratingly went the wrong way, and then carried on going the wrong way for the last race. So I really struggled on the Sunday, so it was difficult.
“Going into Cadwell Park this weekend I would say I kind of refrain myself from having too much of an expectation. At the moment for me I’m just taking each weekend as it comes to see if I can get the bike working how I know it can and how I want it to, and I think once I can get that, we’ll then find the consistency. We’ve got the test on Friday evening, which could be quite handy for us to see where we’re at and from there we can work and hopefully build.
“Cadwell Park is a track that I enjoy riding and traditionally go well on. It was nice to be able to take a couple of podiums last year, especially the win, in front of so many of the factory staff who don’t always get to come to the races. We’re not where we would want to be in the championship points at this stage, but we’ve had a test and we’ve put a lot of thought into what we’ve learnt from the first half of the season. We’ll just work in every session and keep our focus on where it needs to be - which is reaching the podium and winning races. That’s got to be the target.”
Irwin said: “I’m looking forward to the weekend, we’ve taken some steps forward recently and I feel like I’m gathering momentum towards reaching the podium for the first time this year. The team is working hard and doing as much as they can at the track and at Louth to give us all the best package possible. I’m working hard on and off the track and I think we can be confident of a strong weekend. Cadwell Park is unique, there’s nothing really to compare with it anywhere in the world, it’s always a balance to get the bike handling how you need it.”