British champion Bridewell to wildcard with Honda Racing UK at Cremona
Tommy Bridewell will return to WorldSBK for the first time since 2019 on the CBR1000RR-R machine at the Italian venue
The MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship heads to the Cremona Circuit next time out and Honda Racing UK have announced that reigning British champion Tommy Bridewell will compete at the Acerbis Italian Round as a wildcard. Bridewell will compete on a WorldSBK-spec CBR1000RR-R and he has experience of both the Championship and Cremona after he took part in a test there in the summer alongside Team HRC’s Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge.
Bridewell claimed last year’s British Superbike title when running with the Paul Bird Motorsport outfit on a Ducati Panigale V4 R with eight wins and 18 podiums. He left the team at the end of the season to join Honda Racing UK, where he leads the standings with two wins and 13 rostrums this season, with three rounds left as part of the championship’s ‘showdown’ format. He holds a 19-point lead over Kyle Ryde, who will wildcard at Jerez.
The team and Bridewell tested at Cremona back in May, alongside the WorldSBK Team HRC squad, to evaluate the possibility of a wildcard appearance. During that test, Honda Racing UK and Team HRC worked closely together and that will continue during the Italian Round with Bridewell’s wildcard appearance. It will be his first time racing in WorldSBK since 2019, when he raced at Jerez with Ducati machinery and scored points, as he did at Imola earlier in the season. He also made appearances in 2010 with Honda and 2008 with Suzuki, although didn’t score points on those occasions.
Discussing his first WorldSBK appearance since 2019, Bridewell said: “I’m here to race; it’s what I love doing so I’m really looking forward to it to be honest. We had hoped to join the WorldSBK race at Donington but unfortunately the stars didn’t quite align for this to happen. I really enjoyed the Cremona wildcard evaluation a few months ago so it’ll be great to have the opportunity to put into practice some of the things we learnt from this and keep on building the momentum ahead of the final few races of the BSB season."
Team Manager Havier Beltran added: “We are delighted to take this opportunity and participate at the World Superbike race at Cremona next weekend. The prospect of continuing to work closely with our HRC colleagues in the WorldSBK paddock was a chance not to be missed.”
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