Glenn Irwin heads to Donington Park in a positive frame of mind after a successful test with his Bennetts British Superbike Honda Racing team.

Irwin currently sits narrowly adrift of the all-important top-eight at the half-way point of the pre-showdown season, just nine points and two positions behind FS-3 Kawasaki’s Lee Jackson.

Having secured his first podium of the year at Thruxton last-time-out, and claiming a trio of second place finishes at the Derby track in 2020, the Northern Irishman is aiming to continue this momentum into round five.

“We go into this weekend off the back of the podium at Thruxton, which was important for myself and everyone in the Honda Racing team,” Irwin said.

“We have had a more difficult start to the year, but throughout all of that, we have been trying many different things, so maybe the results haven’t been phenomenal, but we have been continuing to test and develop,” he admitted.

“We are going back to a track where we have achieved great results last year; the team were not off the podium, so I am confident. I feel that together me and the Honda Fireblade work well and we have made important improvements since then too.

“I feel like at Thruxton, yes we were on the different tyre which helped, and you need to be strong on the SCX which is back into play this weekend, but we backed it up with a good test at Cadwell Park after Thruxton.

“To me that went really, really well and we had a few different ideas on areas where we have been struggling and we had objectives to fix those. I feel we achieved a lot at the test, the bike felt good and there was a great atmosphere within the team. It was productive and should stand us in good stead.