British Superbike Championship 2023: ‘I know I am good enough’ to win title – Tommy Bridewell

Tommy Bridewell has said that he knows he is “good enough” to win the British Superbike Championship this year.

The PBM squad have won six titles over the last 11 years, four with Shane ‘Shaky’ Byrne, the 2019 title with Scott Redding and Josh Brookes’ 2020 triumph.

“If I can’t win it now, with the most successful team in the championship with a bike that I believe is still capable of, not easily, but comfortably winning races and a championship, then I’m not good enough,” Bridewell told Eurosport. “That is not the case – I know I am good enough.

“I said to my brother that it’s now a slow burner this year. We’ve not got the showdown now and all I know is I’m here to attack from round one and come over the line at Brands as champion.”

He will race the Ducati Panigale V4R this season and is particularly excited about the engine that will be the same specification of Alvaro Bautista’s World Superbike motor.

“The new bike is just totally different,” explained Bridewell. “For me, with the experience I’ve got on the Ducati, it didn’t change anything at all.

“I was under the assumption last year that I was on the latest-spec bike but it perhaps wasn’t quite as latest-spec as I thought.

“But the bike I’m on now is the absolute latest-spec basically. If you put the factory electronics on it and the World Superbike engine on it, which is exactly what Bautista is running.

“When I went out, straight away the fuel tank was a big difference – very low, very small at the front but a massive lump underneath you, behind.”

He added: “The biggest step from what I know and understand is the new engine, very different cam profiles which we didn’t run in Spain. We were running the F22 engines, which is what PBM ran last year, which were phenomenally fast.

“But I think the new-spec engine is a lot calmer, smoother, better for tyres, better for the rider and just all-round better race pace.”

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