When Glenn Irwin claimed a blistering pole position for Honda in the opening Bennetts British Superbike Championship race at Snetterton, few would have expected his best finish to be an 11th. But that’s exactly what happened with the Honda Racing rider unable to convert his one lap pace into a race result.

Irwin only needed one flying lap in the first few minutes of qualifying to secure pole, returning to his garage for the rest of the session. And all went well in the opening race as he led the way for the first five laps.

However, one of the few riders to opt for the harder SC0 Pirelli tyre, his weekend started on its downward turn when he ran slightly wide and lost the front through Oggie’s on the fifth of 12 laps.

“Pole position was good, I've been feeling good on the bike lately and I'm confident when we roll out on new tyres we can go as fast as anyone round any circuit,” he said later.

“We know we have to improve the second half of the races though and on Saturday we tried something different with a hard tyre, which felt good and I felt like I was controlling the pace. I was deliberately holding the pace in the 48’s but on lap five I made a really silly mistake, simple as that. I braked a bit deeper and it was a school boy error.”

It was an error he never recovered from and after taking 11th in Sunday’s opening race, he finished in 14th in the five-lap dash that concluded the weekend.
 
“I think what we can take away from Snetterton is once again I’ve shown that myself and the Honda Fireblade have the ability during a qualifying session to show what we can do in terms of outright pace.”

“The crash was only small but the bike took a big slap and unlike Thruxton, the bike felt really different the following day. Sometimes that happens. I couldn’t get the bike to turn, it felt weak coming out of the corners and I just had a really strange feeling with no pace whatsoever.”

“It’s frustrating but we’ve gathered data and information and I got a bit lucky in the last race with Danny (Buchan) and Lee (Jackson) not scoring. You don’t celebrate other people’s misfortune but my two points actually helped as I at least scored something.”

The series now heads to Silverstone with Irwin sitting in seventh overall and in one of the Showdown positions, albeit just 12 points above the drop zone. With three fourths at Silverstone last year, he’s looking forward though, not back.

“Silverstone’s a track I love and we were strong there last year. We didn’t have the outright performance to win but the bike worked well and we’ve improved a lot since then.”

“Looking at the results of the last few years, the Yamaha’s and Suzuki’s will go well so I expect Jason and Taz to be up there and also Gino Rea and Luke Stapleford, especially Gino after his strong results at Snetterton.”

“It’s going to be a three-race shootout for the final Showdown positions but whilst I’m fully aware the likes of Brad (Ray), Josh (Brookes), Ryan (Vickers) and the like are all more than capable of scoring heavily, I’m looking to do the same and climb further up the table and move ahead of Danny if I can.”

“I love riding the Fireblade, the team are fantastic and I love riding for Honda so I’m feeling confident. The bike has so much potential and whilst we’ve shown that at times, we just need to unlock it on a more consistent basis and across all three days of the weekend.”