Honda Racing UK set for Oulton Park Showdown battle
This weekend at Oulton Park, the 2021 Bennetts British Superbike Championship Showdown battle commences with Honda Racing’s Glenn Irwin in contention, while Tom Neave will be looking to further boost his National Superstock Championship lead.
After a mixed season, Glenn secured his place in the top-eight ‘title fighters’ who will fight for the 2021 championship crown across the next three rounds. Glenn currently sits seventh with 1012 points, 59 points adrift of the series leader, having taken a win, two seconds and a third place this season aboard the Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP.
Glenn’s Superbike teammates and BSB rookies Ryo Mizuno and Takumi Takahashi will be looking to better their fortunes at the Cheshire circuit, after what was a mixed first visit for the pair in June during the opening round of the season. Armed now with more mileage on the BSB spec Fireblade and having completed most of the season, the Honda duo will be looking towards the top-15.
Meanwhile Tom Neave continues to lead the way in the Pirelli National Superstock Championship with 194 points, having scored three wins, two seconds and a third place aboard the Fireblade this year. Looking to make amends after crashing out chasing down the podium at the first round at the 2.692-mile circuit, Tom has two races this weekend to secure more solid points towards his championship challenge.
Superbike first practice gets underway at 12.30 on Friday 24 September, with Race 1 taking place on Saturday and Race 2 and Race 3 on Sunday. Click here for the full timetable.
Glenn Irwin
We’re now in the Showdown so the first target is complete, now we move to the second one which is to move further up in the standings, starting this weekend at Oulton Park with three opportunities to score solid points. Oulton is a track where the Fireblade has been fast and I think we go there in a better position now than we did earlier in the season. I'm just looking forward to the weekend, it's a nice feeling going in with the Showdown place secured. We've done a great job so far, so we need to continue like this and keep up the good work across the weekend.
Ryo Mizuno
This is my second time at Oulton Park and I am very excited to see how much I have improved since the opening round. In the first half of the season, we were struggling to understand the set-up of the bike and the track, so we weren't able to use it in our riding. BSB is a very tough and a high-level championship with very little time difference between the top riders. With only three rounds to go I will be working hard from Friday to get into a good rhythm.
Takumi Takahashi
I didn't have a good ride in the opening race at Oulton Park because of my shoulder injury, so I'm going to try this weekend. In BSB the first few laps after the start are very important and I learned how to control and ride as there is not much electronic control. I'm looking forward to the weekend and seeing how we have improved since the opening race.
Tom Neave
Oulton Park is another exciting and technical track to ride, we’ve got the Fireblade working well now, especially at some of the more technical layouts, which we struggled at last year. At the opening round this year, apart from the crash we had a positive weekend given the situation I was in personally, so I think this weekend will be a good one! We’ve got two races, which is always better than one over a weekend and it’s two chances to capitalise on some good points. It’s a really exciting track that always produces good racing, so bring it on!