The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team has concluded the eighth WorldSBK round at Hungary’s Balaton Park circuit with a positive points finish for rider Tito Rabat in the second and final race, while rookie Zaidi made good progress to place seventeenth in both of the day’s races. Finishing inside the points zone in only his second event is a promising result for Rabat and the team after a weekend that had its challenges.

Just prior to the Superpole race, the SBK field lined up for a special commemorative photo on the grid to mark the 1000th WorldSBK race start, a milestone moment for the production-derived series. The ten-lap race ran then got underway on a damp track after heavy rain earlier in the morning. Lining up for this sprint race in fourteenth and nineteenth place thanks to their qualifying results, Rabat and Zaidi took care through the first corners in light of Friday’s incidents. Lying seventeenth on lap three, Tito unfortunately had a technical issue on lap five that forced him to pit, the rider unable to continue with the sprint race. Lying seventeenth on lap six, teammate Zaidi did his best to maintain a consistent pace to the line, completing the race in that same position.

The weekend’s final race ran in the early afternoon, in dry conditions, with Rabat and Zaidi starting from sixteenth and nineteenth on the grid. Both riders worked hard to establish a consistent rhythm, with Tito able to stick close to the group ahead, while rookie Zaqhwan started to lose contact with his closest rivals. Rabat managed the second half of the race well, moving into the points zone and crossing the line fifteenth to score his first point with the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team. Teammate Zaidi ultimately placed P17 after working hard to improve his lap times.

WorldSBK will now take a five-week break before the action resumes at the Magny-Cours Circuit in France over the weekend of 5-7 September. The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team will conduct a test session at Motorland Aragon on 25-26 August in order to be best prepared for the remainder of the 2025 season.

Tito Rabat #53

“I had good feeling in the wet warm-up this morning but then in the Superpole race I had a small electronic issue with the bike which prevented me from finishing. We hoped to do a bit better in Race 2, but although we didn’t get the result we wanted, we scored a valuable point, which is a good step at what is only my second event with the team. I think we deserved more though, and would have likely done more without the earlier crashes. I want to say a big thank you to the team for all their hard work, and now I’m looking forward to the test at Aragon; I think it will be important to work calmly on the bike before heading to Magny-Cours, as we have a lot to test and there’s never time over a normal race weekend. So that will be really important.”

Zaqhwan Zaidi #21

“The conditions were quite mixed today. I expected rain to be honest and was quietly confident after the wet warm-up as I had good feeling with the bike. I did my best in both races, as always, but it’s always tricky in mixed conditions. In the Superpole race, we had a small issue with the electronics, without which I think I’d have been able to stick closer to those in front. We tried again in Race 2, which was fully dry. I kept working to try to improve my lap times and finished P17. I want to thank the team for their efforts this weekend and now we look ahead to the next round.”