Bridewell gets up to speed at new track Balaton

The fourth round of the 2026 Superbike World Championship is underway and, for Superbike Advocates Racing and Tommy Bridewell, it’s all about tackling a brand-new track: Hungary’s Balaton Park Circuit.

Taking to the track with his Ducati Panigale V4R for Friday morning’s first WorldSBK practice, category rookie Bridewell made an encouraging start, working with his technicians to adjust the technical setup of his Italian bike, which allowed him to make gradual gains throughout the session. At the end of this initial 45-minute phase, the British rider had lapped with a fastest time of 1’41.490 to place nineteenth.

Keen to keep building his feeling and confidence around this new track, Bridewell made the most of FP2. Quickly able to shave several tenths off his FP1 reference, the rider continued to work in the right direction with his technicians. Improving on his time by a good 1.5 seconds during the course of the session, Tommy climbed to twelfth position in the day’s combined standings thanks to a best of 1’39.935, which put him just a fraction more than a second from the fastest rider.

Superbike Advocates Racing will keep up the good work heading into Saturday as the squad prepares for Superpole and the first of the weekend’s three races.

Tommy Bridewell (Superbike Advocaets Racing #46)
“A positive first day for sure. I’ve never been here before, so I needed to get my head around the circuit in FP1. I think I adapted quite quickly, and then in FP2, once I knew my way around, I could enjoy riding the bike more. There are some key areas where we can still take a big step with the bike I think, so we’ll analyse the data this evening and try to understand where the feeling is missing. Once we have that, I reckon we can definitely do more tomorrow.”