Honda “can fight for wins” in WorldSBK with new bike - Jake Dixon
Honda can contend for WorldSBK victories with its new bike, Jake Dixon believes.
Jake Dixon thinks Honda can be challenging for victories in WorldSBK with its updated CBR1000RR-R.
Honda’s new Fireblade was presented at the EICMA show in Milan. The bike features a new frame, swingarm, and a new fairing with updated aerodynamics, as well as several minor tweaks to the engine.
The effect of the updates on Honda’s WorldSBK results will only be seen with time, but after an initial test on the bike at Jerez at the end of October Jake Dixon is confident about the new package’s potential.
“I’m 100 per cent confident in the direction Honda is taking,” said Jake Dixon, speaking to WorldSBK.com about the new bike at EICMA.
“I’m normally a pretty confident person anyway, but I’m looking forward to the new challenge with this bike and the new rule changes to come.
“I think we can fight for wins. If we can’t, there’s no point in getting up every day and training as hard as we do.
“My goal and Honda’s goal is to win.
“This year didn’t go to plan, but sometimes in life there are setbacks, and it’s more a matter of how you come back from them that makes you great.”
Dixon highlighted the aerodynamics on the new bike as one of the standout changes compared to the previous Fireblade, which debuted in 2024.
“Honestly, there are a lot of changes,” said Dixon.
“It’s a whole new bike. New aero, new frame, everything. I’m super excited.
“We rode the bike around two weeks ago at Jerez. It’s a big step from what we were doing before, so a massive thank you to Honda and HRC for bringing this new bike out to help us compete more at the front.
“We have a lot of work still ahead of us, but we will go step-by-step.
“The new aero is a particularly big difference from what we had; we didn’t have much on the old bike, and this one has a lot more.”
Dixon’s WorldSBK season is over, of course, but he is not necessarily done racing in 2026. Reports emerged on Tuesday that the British rider will race the Qatar MotoGP this weekend in place of Joan Mir, whose vision problems returned at Malaysia last week and who will therefore reportedly miss the Lusail race.
Alex joined the Crash.net team in August of 2024 having covered consumer and racing motorcycle news at Visordown for two years.
