Honda’s home-round hero Bridewell winning once more

Race Report Monday 26th August 2024

In a brilliant display of riding calmly under pressure, Tommy Bridewell wins on Honda’s home turf in the opening Bennetts British Superbike Championship race of the day.

With the August sunshine finally making its long-awaited appearance the BSB grid rolled out onto the grid for the first race of the day, the shorter twelve-lap sprint. Lining up in the middle of the front row, Tommy Bridewell was fully focused on the job at hand having made key strategic decisions with his crew prior to the race.

After a rocket start as the lights went out, it was three abreast into turn one as Tommy tussled with his competitors for the lead. Moments later, it was into the lead for Tommy and a leading trio of riders began to make their getaway. Fast lap after fast lap followed as the three, Tommy, Kyle and Jackson ran nose to tail.

With the team signalling to defend hard in sector one, Tommy became aware that it was in this part of the circuit that the attacks were likely to come. As such, what followed was a masterful display of defensive riding to ensure that his Fireblade was as wide as possible for the duration of the race to hold the lead. And disappoint Tommy did not, for he held the lead all the way to the chequered flag to deliver the team their first home-round win since Alex Lowes’ title-winning year of 2013.

In the second race of the day, the longer 20-lap feature, there was work to do early in the race from the middle of the second row as Tommy lost a position in the early race tussle. On his second circuit though he passed Honda mounted Jackson and was up into fifth, which quickly became fourth when Vickers crashed from the lead. By lap five, Tommy had closed in on and then passed his old adversary Glenn Irwin for third. Not content with third, and just a few laps later, he had passed Nesbitt for second and set his sights on Ryde out front.

At the halfway stage of the race, Tommy was just half a second behind his nearest 2024 championship challenger. The two were lapping at a frighteningly fast pace as the gap between the two yo-yoed. A move for the lead just wasn’t meant to be though as Tommy brought his Fireblade home in second place to secure podium number thirteen of the season. Tommy leaves Cadwell with a nineteen-point championship lead heading into the showdown rounds.

In British Supersport, Jack Kennedy bounced back from the disappointment of Sunday and delivered a composed ride to second to score podium number eleven of the season. Although he relinquished the championship lead it is still all to play for in a three-way scrap for the title. Jack is just one point back from Luke Stapleford with Ben Currie a further in arrears of Jack. Dean Harrison was unable to capitalise on the promising pace of morning warm up as he crashed out of the race on lap four.

The team will be back in action for round nine of the championship which takes place at Oulton Park 13 - 15th September.

#1 Tommy Bridewell

I’m happy with my weekend, I really am, I can’t be anything but happy. After the disappointment of qualifying yesterday, I knew that things were going to be difficult today. But I never give up, and to fight back to fourth yesterday, and then get the win this morning and come home with a second this afternoon is credit to where we are at the moment. I owe a lot to the team for the win earlier, because I was struggling in a couple of areas and we worked hard to come up with a strategy to help me manage the race. The plan was to put the sector I was struggling in on my board so I knew where to focus and where to defend and it worked. I don’t think it was the prettiest win but it’s a win nonetheless. In the second race, yes I was frustrated to follow Kyle for the whole race but we were doing unbelievable lap times. I needed to keep the pressure on him in the race, and as competitors, you can't help but admire the pressure we put him under and the fact he didn’t crack so fair play to him. I’m leading the championship still and that’s the way I want it to stay!

Race 2 - 1st, Race 3 - 2nd

#4 Jack Kennedy

Today, we had a game plan to bring the bike home in the top position that we knew was within our limits. It was important for us to race within our limits today to make sure we maximised the championship points that we could score. I flipped a switch in me and said I am not overriding this bike here to try and beat Luke and go down. I need to get this result and I need to finish the race today. I can finally say that I decided to settle for second, which goes against the racer in me, but for the championship, it was the right decision.

Race 2 - 2nd

#5 Dean Harrison

It was a frustrating race to tell the truth after we made a few changes this morning for warm-up which helped me find some more lap time and I went quicker than we went in the race yesterday. I made an alright start but then lost a few places. Then on lap five I clipped the curb and down we went. It’s obviously not the result that we wanted today, but we will get our heads down, keep working and go again at Oulton Park next.

Race 2 - DNF