“Biting the screen”: Honda BSB boss praises Ryan Vickers after first 2026 wins

After taking two wins and a third at the Thruxton BSB, Ryan Vickers has been the focus of praise from Honda Racing UK team manager Scot Hargreaves.

Both Vickers and Hargreaves are in their first year in their current roles, as rider and team manager respectively at Honda Racing UK, although Hargreaves has more experience working in the team than Vickers, who was a new recruit for this season after he was replaced by Alberto Surra at Motocorsa Ducati in WorldSBK.

The world championship has been the scene of intense underperformance from Honda since it re-entered as a factory team in 2020, scoring no victories since then and only a handful of podiums.

In BSB the story has been slightly different, with a title-contending season with Tommy Bridewell in 2024, but 2025 was tough with only one victory from 36 races.

The opening part of 2026 had been tough for Honda, too, with no podium in the first six rounds.

Three podiums and two wins at Thruxton, then, were a change from the norm of late for Honda, and credit has been given to Ryan Vickers for the he’s been riding, “biting the screen”, as team boss Hargreaves puts it, when others might have settled for less.

“It’s no secret that the Honda certainly has struggled as of late,” Hargreaves said in an interview with Crash.net after Race 3 at Thruxton.

“If we look at World Superbike, it’s struggling, if we look at most places the Honda is running, it’s a decent step.

“So, I think absolute credit to the boys that are riding the thing because you can see by the TV coverage that Ryan [Vickers] is riding that thing nearly beyond its limits because he is pushing so hard. 

“I think a lot of riders will think ‘This is all the bike’s got’, but he’s biting the screen and making the results happen.”

Vickers’ Thruxton results came after months of struggling to put the CBR1000RR-R in podium contention.

Although it was Thruxton where the potential was turned into results, the end product came from a “methodical” process of development, Hargreaves explained.

“It’s been a building process,” he said.

“We’ve been quite methodical in everything we’re doing, making steps, step-by-step, to make sure that we’re doing things for the right reason and also in the right direction. 

“I think it’s been coming, and the podium has definitely been in grasping distance in the past couple of rounds, especially with Ryan. 

“So, heading into Thruxton we were confident that we could potentially get back on the podium, so that was the goal. I think, heading into the weekend, if you’d have said ‘You’ll get on the podium’, we’d have taken it. 

“So, to come away with not only a podium, but three podiums and two race wins, it’s absolutely fantastic and a credit to all of the team. 

“It’s not been an easy start for us, we’ve had our work cut out and certainly worked really hard to get that, so it really does mean a lot.”

Vickers himself has been instrumental in that development process, being specific in his feedback about how the bike behaves and what needs to improve.

“Credit to Ryan because he’s been very specific about what we need to do and some of the things to work on,” Hargreaves said.

“Obviously we work as a team and together we end up with a solution. 

“If he’s coming in week in week out shouting and balling and saying ‘The bike’s terrible’, we can’t fix it. 

“As a collective, we’ve managed to do what we needed to do. 

“I’m hoping now, rolling into Cadwell – [...] a round where Ryan feels confident, he’s had success there, it’s a circuit that he really does love, the same for Jason [O’Halloran] as well, it’s given some good results for him as well – I’m hoping now we can roll into Cadwell Park riding the wave of success and also positivity, and hopefully we can keep the ball rolling.”