Jason O’Halloran finished the 2017 MCE British Superbike season in fifth in the standings and equalled his overall result from last year, but this time he was on the new Honda Fireblade.

The Australian ended his racing season on a high after finishing the final event at Brands Hatch in second place, and was close to snatching the race win from Josh Brookes. He also finished race two inside the top five and the opening race on Saturday in sixth.

It has been a year of testing and developing the new Blade and working on aspects of the machine like throttle connection and power delivery. But the team’s hard work has paid off as O’Halloran was able to make it into the showdown.

“We have had our difficulties in the middle part of the year but everyone at the Honda Racing team has kept giving 100% and so have I and the result is a nice way to end the season in second place,” said O’Halloran, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

“We have worked hard this year it has been a taxing year and it has taken a lot of effort to get things going and to get things to the level they need to be at. I have also been unfortunate where I have had big crashes on the Friday and Saturday in the last three or four rounds and I have made mistakes.

“But we kept our heads down and we gained momentum each day and we built our confidence back and felt better and better each day at Brands. I was really pleased to finish second [in the race] and really happy with that and we equalled our position from last year even with a tough middle part of the year to finish fifth in the championship.

“It was a new bike at the start of the year and working on the throttle connection and power delivery. It was tough and the whole team gave it their best and that is all you can ask for and really happy to end the season the way we did.”