2024 Honda Racing Team Announced
POSTED: 15/11/2023
Fresh from the global announcement of two new models, the significantly updated CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP and all new CBR600RR, Honda Racing UK is delighted to announce its plans for the 2024 season and the riders chosen to compete for the Japanese marque in British Championship racing and on the Roads.
In the Bennetts British Superbike Championship, multiple race winner Andrew Irwin continues for his second consecutive year with the team and will be joined by top-ten BSB finisher and road racing sensation Dean Harrison. Both are eager to race the latest Fireblade, which, amongst a host of updates, benefits from improved cornering performance and braking stability as a result of chassis development and MotoGP-derived aerodynamics, whilst further engine evolution has increased mid-range acceleration and top-end power.
Andrew returns for another year with the Honda team after a season of racing severely disrupted by injury. Flashes of brilliant early-season speed were cut short by a significant fracture sustained in a testing crash at Knockhill which resulted in four months on the sidelines. A return late in the year focussed more on long-term progress rather than short-term results. Although a challenging year, Andrew has a fruitful history with Honda having won multiple times on different versions of Fireblade.
The return of the CBR600RR to the European market also sees the factory Honda team enter the British Supersport Championship for the first time since its title-winning year in 2009 as HM Plant Honda. This supersport machine has a hard-won racing pedigree of nine World and six British Supersport championships, and this heritage requires a rider of equal stature. So, joining the team for the 2024 campaign will be the most decorated supersport rider in the series' history, four times British champion and fifty-nine times race winner, Jack Kennedy.
In 2024 Honda will continue to showcase its commitment to the International Road Racing series at both the North West 200 and Isle of Man TT Races. Complementing his short-circuit BSB programme, 2019 Senior TT winner and multiple NW200 podium finisher Dean Harrison is set to embark on an exciting new chapter as he joins Honda for the first time in a career that has brought him three TT wins, twenty-six TT podiums and a reputation as one of the fastest ever road racers.
Joining him in the road racing lineup, none other than road racing royalty John McGuinness MBE continues with Honda, the manufacturer with which his history is intertwined. Heading into what will be John’s thirty-fourth season of motorcycle racing, he now has a remarkable one hundred and eight TT starts to his name, eighty on board a Honda. Still setting 130mph laps and still a fan favourite, Honda and McGuinness will keep writing new memories together.
And finally, in an expanded road racing lineup, Nathan Harrison returns for a second year with the Louth-based team, this time to race solely on the roads. His 2023 debut year didn’t quite go to plan as an injury sustained in a crash at the NW200 ruled him out of competing in many races, albeit he did score his debut points in the Pirelli National Superstock series whilst riding for the team. 2024 therefore, will in effect be his first full year racing for the Honda factory team on the Isle of Man roads that he grew up on.
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