Honda BSB debut to be about “survival” for Ryan Vickers

Honda BSB rider Ryan Vickers is expecting the opening round of 2026 to be about “survival” for him.

Vickers returns to the BSB paddock this year after a year in World Superbike, and has already races the Honda CBR1000RR-R in the world championship at the opening round in Australia where he took the wildcard spot initially intended for Tetsuta Nagashima before the Japanese was taken into the main factory team to replace Somkiat Chantra.

The nine-time BSB race winner had enjoyed positive tests in Spain before the first UK test at Donington on 3–4 April. There, too, he found that he could extract good performance from the Honda, but at the final test at Oulton Park on 21–22 April things were significantly different.

“It’s completely different to Donington here at Oulton,” Ryan Vickers said, speaking to Crash.net after the final session at Oulton Park on 22 April.

“I was quite excited to come here to Oulton because we’d had a pretty good testing history on the Honda at all of the circuits we’ve been to so far, but the one sort of track that we hadn’t come to was a track like Oulton: really undulating, very BSB-like, and unfortunately we’re not close enough. 

“It’s not coming easy. 

“We’ve encountered quite a lot of issues and it’s not just a setup thing either, I think it’s a character of this bike. 

“The team did say to me, said ‘We have always struggled here, it’s not an easy track for our bike, so just take your time’. 

“As much as I wanted to take disbelief with that, they were right, and it’s not easy around here, we’ve got a few really strong bikes here, I’ve ridden the Yamaha here and I know its strengths and that is definitely our weaknesses, for sure. 

“So, we’ve got a lot of work to do, I don’t know how much we’re going to maybe improve it, I don’t know, there’s a lot of things that we’ve got to try. But it’s characteristics of the bike that isn’t going to be 100 per cent fixable.”

As a result of his feelings during the test, Vickers is pessimistic about his chances when BSB returns to Oulton Park for the opening round on 3–5 May.

“It’s not so much a test but it’s just more of a survival sort of thing, and just being as close as we can,” Vickers said when asked if the first round would act as an extra test for him and Honda.

“I very much doubt that we’ll fight for a win, might be able to fight for a top-five, maybe a podium if we really get some things right. 

“So, let’s see, let’s do our best. We know the bike will become stronger at other tracks and we’ll be able to fight, so we’ll do our best and see if we can improve the package.”

Explaining the issues he was experiencing at Oulton Park, Vickers said that he’s struggling on corner exit.

“Just sort of trying to put the power to ground and not wheelie,” he said.

“This bike likes to wheelie a lot. So, we’ve got to try and figure that out, but without wings or without something it’s not easy to do. 

“We’ll keep working hard with the team, we’ve got some ideas, and we’re just going to have to do our best at this round and go home with as many points as we can.”