Bridewell springsasurprise
The surprise package of Sunday’s Suzuka 8-Hour race was British Superbike racer Tommy Bridewell and the S-Pulse Dream Suzuki team, with the Wiltshire racer putting on a storming performance to only just miss out on a podium. Riding injured after being knocked off by an apologetic Alex Lowes in practice, it didn’t stop Bridewell from putting in a heroic effort to take the team to fourth and finish top Suzuki. Spending nearly two hours on track in the middle of the race after being caught out behind the safety car despite losing part of his little finger in the practice crash, the new Moto Rapido Ducati rider was delighted with his result.
He said: “I just couldn’t run strong enough lap times at the end, but I didn’t think we could catch the team in third and we had a minute over the team in fifth, so there was no point risking it all at the end. I just brought it home for a strong result, secretly hoping there’d be a Kawasaki or a Honda parked up with smoke coming out of it in the final few laps!
“But if you’d told me coming off the plane that I would go to Suzuka, do mega lap times and finish fourth, I’d have snapped their arm off. I can’t grumble, but you always want that little bit more. I did think at one point that after not being on the podium in a while, to go and do it at Suzuka would have been a huge achievement. And it would have shut a few people up.”
‘I was secretly hopingto see a broken Honda’