2025 Official Donington Park British Superbike Test Results - Day 2 (Saturday)

Fastest on Friday, courtesy of a new record lap at the end of the day, Glenn Irwin returned to British Superbike testing for the second day and picked up where he left off. Immediately quickest again, and with timing on his side before the clouds opened for another downpour, PBM rider was able to lower his own benchmark time.

The new best of 1m 27.015s came in the sixth and final BSB session and although testing is not just about lap times, it was hard not to put importance on the Hagar Ducati riders ability to pick up the pace at will and out-pace the opposition.

• 2025 Official Donington Park British Superbike Test Results - Day 1 (Friday)
• Kyle Ryde and Bradley Ray break cover on new bikes at BSB test

The top three times for the test all came from the final session, with Leon Haslam finishing just 0.320s slower for Moto Rapido Ducati having topped the timesheets until Irwin’s takeover.

Kyle Ryde was only just behind the Ducati duo, finishing his first 2025 outing 0.342s from the lap record for OMG, now partnered with Nitrous Competitions to allow the 2024 champion the chance to run his #1 plate on track.

Danny Kent has run 2 bikes over the test, leaving no stone unturned in his quest for the title, a McAMS liveried Yamaha and an all black test bike. The #52 was on the latter when he set the fourth best time in the fifth session - a crucial one for many after the washout that began the day.

Bradley Ray was claiming to feel rusty but still found his way to the fifth best time, again in the fifth session, for his bailout team after the OMG issues, Raceways Yamaha.

Keen as ever, former champion Josh Brookes was out first in the trickiest weather as the Australian looked ever more comfortable on his DAO Racing bike after having former home FHO leave the championship, sixth quickest and top Honda.

Max Cook left seventh despite a string of bad luck - his time on track on Saturday was halted twice by mechanical failures on his AJN Steelstock Kawasaki.

Andrew Irwin was the best of the Honda Racing UK riders in eighth, his best time coming in the final session.

Ninth was the best of the new season rookies, Scott Swann, with an eye-catching performance from the IWR Honda rider.

Christian Iddon was out until the very end of session six, hoping for the rain to fade for more track time, completing the top ten after a huge amount of laps and data gained aboard his AJN Steelstock Kawasaki.

Tommy Bridewell left his Redgate fall on Friday uninjured but the same damage level did not apply to his Honda, with a strip down directly after and a rebuild  before the Saturday sessions. 

Unimpressed with his performance in session 5, where he was tenth, huge changes were made to the repaired bike, but his time did not improve in session six, leaving the 2023 champion twelfth quickest for Honda.

Rory Skinner had a hard opening day where nothing went to plan, working away to make up for lost time on Saturday the Scottish rider picked up the pace to finish 15th overall.

Only three riders did not go quicker on the second day, and all were newcomers to the class - John McPhee, Jamie Davis and Blaze Baker.

McPhee was halted after a strong start by a crash , which his mechanics thought had ended his test after the second Saturday session. Their hard work paid off and the MasterMac Honda was back on track for a quick checks and series of laps before the rain returned.

Session by Session

Session one on Saturday (session four overall) was a quiet affair with no track action for much of the hour at all. Storm Stacey was the first to check out the damp and cold, but drying track with just under half an hour left on the clock - but pulled straight back in.

Brookes was the first rider to set a lap, completing the most with ten laps set in the session, with Ryde going fastest of the nine riders as the chequered flag waved, his 1m 29.153s best illustrating the difference in conditions to the record pace found on Friday and later again on Saturday.

Leon Haslam had a technical issue, coming to a stop at Redgate in the gravel.

Rory Skinner ensured he got track time after a difficult opening day, similarly Tommy Bridewell was the last rider to exit to test his rebuilt bike after he fell on the opening day.

Luke Hedger, Max Cook and Lee Jackson, after running around with scissors and duct tape in the pits to make changes to his DAO racing Honda, were the only other riders to venture out on track.

Session five was busy - making up for lost time for most of the riders.

Glenn Irwin was again sat at the top of the timesheets, with some consistant laps set, close to his best.

Danny Kent was out on his black test bike, and waitied until the chequered flag to move up to second, finishing just 0.059s slower.

Ray lead the session on his way to third, with Haslam having another strong showing in fourth with Ryde competing the Ducati and Yamaha dominated top five. Brookes was again the best Honda in sixth, while seventh was filled by Cook, as the top Kawasaki, but hampered by an early technical - stopping at the Melbourne Loop - which had not been resolved by the end of the track time available.

Scott Swann was the best of the new BSB recruits as he continued to put in a noteworthy performance in eighth.

Bridewell was clearly unhappy with his set-up after finishing tenth, with his Honda back up in the garage after it’s rebuild for some more drastic alterations, including taking out and replacing the shocks.

Blaze Baker ran into the gravel with half an hour to go but stayed onboard to return to track, the South African newcomer to the class was not so lucky later in the session, falling at McLeans, not long after fellow BSB rookie John McPhee had a heavy tumble at Redgate. Guest rider Tom Booth-Amos also had an excursion into the gravel at Coppice but recovered.
 

The final session got off to a flying start with the record lap from Irwin, but was to become yet another session affected by rain.

Haslam and Ryde had done enough to fill the top three in the session, before being bested by the Ducati rider, with Ray and Kent solid again in the top five.

The unfortunate Cook had his second technical failure, this time stopped out on track at Starkeys, the time set held firm for sixth.

Rory Skinner had the most of the time available and was a much improved 13th for Cheshire Mouldings Ducati.

John McPhee managed to get out on track after his bike needed a huge amount of attention following his fall in the previous session, with the team not sure he would get out for a final run at all.

Billy McConnell was the latest faller finishing his Donington test with a trip to the medical centre after crashing in the Craner Curves.

Bridewell continued to struggle after his bike rebuild, with his time only just ahead of McConnell, in 17th.

With nine minutes remaining the red flag came out as Richard Kerr came off his new MLav Racing bike, also at Craner Curves.

More rain arrived while the flag was out, with MasterMac Honda first to pull down their shutters as the remaining time ticked away.

Listed as a BSB rider, Davey Todd (20th overall) has been running around Donington on a BMW Superstock machine, while 8TEN Racing Racing teammate and co-founder Peter Hickman skipped the test after attending Navarra to concentrate on getting their Superbike entries ready.

There is one final test to come as BSB move to the venue for the opening round over Wednesday 23-24 April ahead of the first race weekend there over the 3-5 May.