Photo credits: WorldSBK
This season, Honda HRC decided to officially return to the World Superbike championship after many years in which the Japanese racing department relied on Ten Kate to run their CBR1000RR Fireblade’s. For Honda HRC, this decision comes as the result of the performance of the Asian motorcycle market.
As Soichi Yamana, Honda HRC manager for the two-wheels motorsport sector, said, superbike sales in Asia are growing much more than expected, and Honda has a market share of 70-80% in the big displacement segment, so it made sense for the Japanese giants to return to the World Superbike championship and show everyone that the CBR1000RR Fireblade SP2 is able to win races.
“Our clients are looking for high-performance bikes, and other manufacturers are trying to find a way to get into this market. So we couldn’t stay idle while this happens. That’s why we decided to return to the World Superbike championship this season, to show our most technologically advanced Fireblade. We want to show a high-tech image of us so that consumers will prefer to buy Honda bikes instead of bikes from other manufacturers”, says Yamana.
And if Honda HRC returned to the Superbike class, the same can’t be said of the World Supersport class. The famous CBR600RR is manufactured anymore, with Honda waiting a few more years before the launch of the next generation of this supersport machine.
To this, Yamana replies saying that Honda HRC is much more interested in showing what the CBR600RR can do on the Asia Road Racing Championship, where they’re involved directly.