Honda Racing returns to its roots at 2025 Isle of Man TT Races

Friday 23^rd May 2025

Honda Racing returns to the circuit where its international motorsport story began 66 years ago, the 37.730-mile (60.718 km) Isle of Man TT Mountain Course, for its annual expedition to the most famous motorcycle race in the world.

This year, the Isle of Man TT, which was founded in 1907, will run from May 26 until June 7. Honda Racing arrives in the paddock fielding entries for top contender Dean Harrison and the evergreen 23-time TT winner, John McGuinness MBE across three of the event's categories.

In 2024, the team brought home five trophies from the TT, with Harrison's second place in Supersport the highest among them. This year Honda Racing continues to target the podium and to take the ultimate step to race victories.

Carrying number 1 among the seeded riders, McGuinness will lead the charge on a Honda Fireblade in the ‘big bike’ categories of Superstock, Superbike and Senior TT. He arrives in Douglas off the back of a highly impressive build-up that has seen him set personal best lap times at venues such as Donington Park and Oulton Park in pre-season testing, and running as high as third in the North West 200 earlier this month.

In 2024, McGuinness claimed fifth, sixth and seventh place class finishes - still in the very top few percent among all the riders who take on the challenge of the Isle of Man. This year, the Morecambe Missile is once again aiming for the podium, and with his evident pace allied to unrivalled racecraft and track savvy, he will surely be in the fight.

Bolton-born Harrison meanwhile arrives after claiming five podium finishes earlier this month in the opening road race of the season, Northern Ireland’s North West 200. Not only that, but last weekend at Donington Park, Harrison lapped his Honda CBR600RR to within one thousandth of a second of his team-mate, five-time Supersport champion Jack Kennedy, to highlight his growing stature in the British Superbike Championship’s supporting Supersport class.

The TT takes Harrison back to his first love of the open road, of long laps and of finding speed in a unique discipline. Having relocated hearth and home to the island, he will ride his regular BSB Supersport mount, the CBR600RR, in the smaller category as well as joining McGuinness as a Fireblade rider in the Superstock, Superbike and Senior TT races as the number 3 seed.

Two weeks of the greatest spectacle in road racing await and Honda Racing is ready to challenge for honours, continuing the tradition that was founded on the event back in 1959.

#3 Dean Harrison

I’m feeling really good about everything except the weather at the moment, which looks like it might be a bit disappointing for the first week at least, so I hope that the forecast will change a little bit. The bikes are in place, the trucks in place, the hospitality’s all set and the lads in the team are arriving so it’s starting to feel like we’re ready to go. I’m good to go, in myself, and I’m ready to go now, to be honest. Realistically, how we finished the North West 200 is how we’re going to start at the TT, so it will take the first day’s practice to see how that then translates to what we need and where we need to work to really get our setup right for the rest of the week. We used the same specification of Metzeler tyres at the North West 200 as we use here, so I’m confident in terms of how they are handling. It’s impossible to predict who is going to be challenging for the win - at the moment it looks like everyone on the seeded list can come in looking confident, to a degree. It’s going to be extremely fast, there are a lot of guys and a lot of bikes who are in form so we need to hit the ground running, get the setup sorted as quickly as possible and get some fast laps under us belts.

#1 John McGuinness MBE

We’re in a good place for the TT, a bit of a sweet spot. We hit the ground running at the North West which meant that we were just hurtling round having fun, really. While it’s true I’ve set personal best times each time I’ve been out, I think what’s more important than that is I’m just enjoying riding my bike and being competitive.... I’m in a good place and I’m grateful to still be doing it and to be able to appreciate it for what it is. It’s quite a rare thing to be in this position and work with the Honda team and with these bikes. I still love the whole TT package. There’s the track itself, the people around it - nothing really compares to it. I’ve done a lot of things in racing all over the world, but the TT is just another level and it brings it home to you that we’re still allowed to do this type of thing - and long may it continue. Our bikes are working well, we were well over the 200 mph mark at the North West 200 and we’re competitive. I love working with Dean, he’s flying at the minute. He’s in a fantastic zone and got five podiums in Northern Ireland - and I’m actually really enjoying seeing him in that position. He knows what he wants and you’ve got to let him run because he’ll deliver. He’s happy to be in the position of doing what he affectionately calls a ‘roar round’. It’s a good way of looking at it. It’s a heavy programme on the event with all the commitments that we have, but at the end of it we get to roar round 38 miles of fantastic roads. There’s lots of places that give you a thrill and everywhere’s a challenge.

TO See the full Isle of Man TT schedule CLICK here