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Brands BSB: Season review with Honda boss Havier Beltran

Honda Racing’s Havier Beltran is feeling ‘extremely’ proud of his rider and his team during the 2016 MCE British Superbike championship, which saw Dan Linfoot and Jason O’Halloran both make it into the Showdown.

The pair had bounced back from serious injuries in 2015 and were in championship contention this year. In the end Beltran’s team wracked up a race win and thirteen podium finishes, and all onboard an eight-year-old Fireblade.

Not only that, but Beltran’s other rider, Jenny Tinmouth achieved personal best’s and improved her lap records and development on the Honda. Linfoot and O’Halloran ended up fourth and fifth respectively in the overall standings with an impressive total of 1,170 points between them.

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“I feel extremely proud of the team and rider’s with what we have achieved with the Fireblade, baring in mind it is an eight, nine-year-old machine and it has so much more potential,” said Beltran, speaking to bikesportnews.com at Brands.

“We know we have a new bike coming out for 2017 and I think that has helped a lot of the guys motivation and drive and it has been an incredible year for the guys. Here we have had a season where we have had thirteen podiums, a race win with rider’s who were not even in the wording or script at the beginning of the year so I am incredibly proud of the team.

“The year has been difficult all round as we have been trying to meet expectations and deliver to the three riders but in different disciplines. With Jason - six years with us and nine on a Honda, then coming back from injury last year so I had a lot of feelings with Jason, where we should be with him.

“Dan stayed with us for a second year and had an injury in the first year, but had different expectations with Dan and where he needed to be stronger. And with Jenny, second year with her and our target was to try and improve our lap times and be more consistent. Achieving our lap times and race pace - we achieved that at virtually every circuit.”

Beltran is still finalizing plans for next year, but one thing that is for certain is that the team will have to get to grips with the brand spanking new model Fireblade.

Beltran added: “With Dan and Jason I knew we could have them on the podium week in week out this year, and I believed their ability and ambition was strong and believed in our ability with the crew to get the best out of them. We have just finished Brands and we have got quite a bit of planning to finalise over the next couple of weeks.

“At the end of the day we are all competing to be in the Showdown and it shows the level of the championship and how it is important in the first few rounds of being consistent and being in the top five and six. If you are not then you are on the back foot of trying to stay in the Showdown. I said to the guys it is paramount that we have to be in contention from round one and if we were out of that then it was going to be hard to stay outside the top six - and credit to our team for making it into the Showdown.”

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