Honda Racing's Andrew Irwin is so close to a 2019 Bennetts British Superbike Showdown spot he can smell it but feels he has to cut the gap to the podium men in order to swing into the top six soon.

Irwin has made solid progress on the tricky Fireblade and is now only only 20 points off a top-six spot - but the sixth-placed man happens to team-mate Xavi Fores, who also wants to remain in with a chance of the title.

"I feel we’re really starting to gain momentum, I’ve had two strong race weekends; Knockhill was good and Snetterton we had our best result of the season," said Irwin.

"But now we have to work on the gap and close into the leaders, we may have been 5th and 4th but the gap is still too big and we have to minimise this as much as possible and still continue to take points out of our Showdown rivals.

Thruxton is one of the tracks where you have to be good with the tyres, we’ve not struggled too much with tyre wear this season so hopefully we can maintain that across the weekend and I think my riding style will also help.

"You don’t have to be the fastest at Thruxton to win or get a good result, you have to be the most consistent and I feel I can do that.

"It’s a different circuit to most, it’s fast, it flows and is probably one of the nicest tracks to ride, I think the Fireblade will go well there - it’s similar to Snetterton and circuits like those seem to suit us at the minute, so we’ll go into the weekend with an open mind and carry on where we left off last time out."