It fell to Alvaro Bautista to give the official HRC Honda WorldSBK team its first podium on the all new CBR1000RR-R SP Fireblade, and he did it in race two at Motorland, where he was so convincing as a triple winner on the Ducati last year.

With some significant issues at the beginning of the weekend, including an oil smokescreen at one stage, it was not looking good for full race distances. But as some 2020 glimmers – like sixth places in Phillip Island and then a strong fourth in the Superpole race in Motorland earlier today – demonstrated there is power in the high revving Honda engine, and in its lightweight rider Bautista who has already won 16 WorldSBK races all in.

He was only 3.599 seconds from the race win in race two today and astoundingly he had been running an SCX rear tyre – normally everyone’s choice for the ten lap races only - as well as the softest front.

It was a turnaround for the big Japanese project’s fortunes that was coming sometime soon with all the resources HRC has, but it was still a rare moment of joy for the team.

“This is a good prize for all of the effort and work we are doing,” Bautista told bikesportnews.com. “Especially on this weekend when we had some problems in practice.

Yesterday we had a crash in race one so we have to be happy today. We are on our way to our real target, which is to win. I don’t know when it comes bit for sure we are making small steps forward.”

To put the Honda podium into perspective, the last time any Honda rider took a podium was in 2016, when Michael van der Mark was second in the first race at Magny Cours on a Pata Honda prepped by Ten Kate racing.

It is not all plain sailing on the new Fireblade, especially as Bautista said he has to give it a lot of rider input still.

“Yesterday I struggled a lot in the first laps because right now I have to ride the bike in an aggressive way,” he confirmed. “When I am fighting with the other riders I am not able to do it but today in the Superpole race I just risked in the first corner and I did it outside and I found a good position and stayed in the group.

In race two I started from fourth place I did not have a lot of riders in front of me, so I can stay more in my riding style for this bike. I tried to manage the tyres because this race is long and yesterday I crashed with five or six laps to go and that is the real important lap for the tyres; the last four or five laps. Today was going to be a new feeling for the tyres.

I tried to manage at the beginning but if I managed I had to go slow. But I had to push from the beginning to stay in the front group and at the end I did the race 100 per cent. At the end the tyres were a bit dropped and I had to manage the gap with the rider behind me more than catch the other riders in front.”

Bautista knows that his bike is fast, and feels that it is small things in all areas that his bike needs to move onward now.

But to do what he did on the SCX rear for 18 laps was in some ways mind-blowing. And in some ways, completely necessary. “I used the X tyre because it was the best tyre for me,” he said. “What I said on Friday is that it was lucky it happened at this track because we have a lot of reference (the team has tested at Motorland a fair bit) and the only worry we had was the tyre choice.

With the SCX I feel good; it has better performance. For sure it drops a little bit more than the SC0 but at the end I gained more than I lost. So we decided yesterday that we would race with this tyre today.

“Also, in Superpole they use this tyre a lot. Last year I used it a couple of times and as the other riders, after five or six laps it was destroyed and impossible to do a long distance. It was crazy to use this tyre in a long race. But this year, with this bike, with these conditions, I can use.

“Not for all the long race, which means that we need more grip. This tyre gives you more grip, and helps me a lot to have getter connection with the gas exiting from the corner. So that means that one of our problems is that we needed more mechanical grip from he bike. But on the other side it is positive that we can use this tyre for all the race - because it helped me a lot.”