For the first time in the 2025 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship campaign, Honda HRC had both riders of their Spanish pair on track representing the Japanese manufacturer. After an injury-plagued offseason, and a subsequent broken metatarsal in his left foot suffered at Australia’s Tissot Superpole session, Iker Lecuona is back in action. Both riders performed well over the weekend at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve.

“I’m not looking at the positions, I’m looking more at my feeling with the bike” – Lecuona on his return to WorldSBK pace

Lecuona’s offseason was hampered by a broken rib which he had to nurse through testing, mitigating his ability to push through the pain not to mention the considerable risk of crashing and reinjuring it. Portimao was a great note to return to WorldSBK action on, as his weekend at the rollercoaster round was his best since his P8, P5, P7 in 2023.

“I’m really happy overall, it’s the first time overall since October where I was riding without any pain,” said Lecuona. “Honestly, we worked so hard over the winter break and this month; these last five months I had to recover my body and my mind. Mentally I was feeling like I had dropped a lot at the beginning of my recovery, my family, friends, psychologists helped me manage the situation. Everyone tried to help me arrive to Portimao ready to fight. I’m really happy with myself right now because I’m not looking at the positions, I’m looking more at my feeling with the bike, how we are working in the box; and with that I’m really happy with my team so I have to say thank you to them because they don’t put any pressure on me, it’s the opposite, they try to stop me which gives me extra calm. We did a really good job Saturday, P11 in the Superpole Race, P11 in Race 1, then Sunday morning, we found something on the bike, and I didn’t expect to have so much pace, finishing P9 with everyone on-track is really, really nice for me. In Race 2, before the red flag I was in P6, I almost had the P6 there, but I felt like I managed the race well. In the second half of the race, I almost crashed a few times, and I wanted to finish the race so I finished P8 but it was still a good performance for me after 5 months so I’m happy.”

“Hopefully we can continue our progress to try to compete with the fastest guys" - Vierge on getting back to the latter half of last season’s pace

Vierge had another strong weekend showing, he started the weekend with a P6 in the Tissot Superpole session, followed by a P5 in Race 1, and a P8 in the Tissot Superpole Race before an unfortunate crash in Race 2. His pace was consistently better than in Phillip Island, and now as the grid prepares for Assen, Vierge’s consistent finishes around the top 10 there in last year will put wind in the sails of the Catalan rider.

 On his Portimao Round, Vierge said: “I’m really happy with this result, preseason was quite positive, but as soon as we arrived in Australia in the race weekend, we lost a lot of pace compared to the others and we struggled more than we expected. Luckily at the Portimao test we recovered from that. We worked a lot on the electronics to try to minimize our weaker points and finally we could race well. The first thing was our good Superpole race, performing well there, allowed us to race well. I think the direction we are going with the bike is the right one, and hopefully we can continue our progress to try to compete with the fastest guys."

Follow the Honda HRC riders as well as the rest of the grid in Round 3 at Assen April 11-13^th with the WorldSBK VideoPass!