The British Superbike championship is provisionally set to start at Donington Park in August. And one of the bikes competing will be the 2020 BSB Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP, which has been revealed by Honda Racing.
Keen to show the relationship between the race machine for the BSB and National Superstock series, and the production road version of Fireblade, the team has opted to base the race livery on the Pearl Black paint you could have on your own bike.
So a race replica should be a little easier to create this year!
The rider line-up for Honda Racing in the 2020 Bennetts British Superbikes season will be Andrew and Glenn Irwin. Last year saw a first race win for Andrew at Thruxton, along with some controversy, while Glenn joins Honda Racing after a year which saw him ride for both Quattro Plant Kawasaki and Tyco BMW.
The 2020 BSB Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP will also be competing in the Pirelli National Superstock 1000 championship with riders Tom Neave and Davey Todd.
As you can see from the parts and stickers, the Honda team is continuing a long relationship with Castrol and Akrapovic, along with Close Brothers and Nova gearboxes. And Datatool is a new sponsor for the coming season.
Obviously there are quite a lot of trick parts on the BSB bike, as you might expect. The production SP is an uprated version of the standard Fireblade with a MotoGP-inspired design and upgrades. So the 2020 BSB Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP takes this further to be competitive on UK circuits.
The OZ racing wheels, Nissin calipers and Ohlins front forks are all easily recognisable at the front, along with a nice carbon fibre mudguard.
The dash and bars look like a pretty impressive place to be, and we all know that an official HRC sticker adds 5hp to any bike. The LCD display is the main focus, but does anyone else have a strong urge to press every one of the buttons to find out what they do?
The rear of the bike once again features an OZ wheel. And the obligatory Akrapovic.
But as with a lot of racing machines, it’s always the finer details that are most interesting and impressive. The quality of individual welds, or the immaculate attention to detail.
The British Superbikes Honda Fireblade was originally used in early March for a test in Spain. But with all riders and teams on pause since then, it’ll be interesting to see how it, and the rest of the BSB field, perform when everything hopefully kicks back into gear in August.
The provisional 2020 BSB calendar is currently set to feature three races at each of the six rounds, which are as follows:
- Round 1: Donington Park National (7-9 August)
- Round 2: Snetterton 300 (21-23 August
- Round 3: Silverstone National (4-6 September)
- Round 4: Oulton Park (18-20 September)
- Round 5: Donington Park GP (2-4 October)
- Round 6: Brands Hatch GP (16-18 October)
In the meantime, you can start working on your Honda BSB replica, check out our latest Honda motorcycle news and content, or take a look at our previous Racing articles.
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