The Honda Endurance Racing team returned to the podium today aboard the all-new Honda Fireblade after finishing the 8 Hours of Slovakia Ring in third place.

With progress made throughout all practice and qualifying sessions the team and its riders, Freddy Foray, Julien Da Costa and Sébastien Gimbert, started the eight-hour race quietly confident. The Slovakia Ring is a new circuit added to the FIM EWC calendar and is one that seems to have suited both riders and the 2017 Fireblade.

The race got underway at 1330 local time and it was Foray who started for the Honda squad. With a good start off the line, Foray was within the top-five by the end of the first lap. However, a small mistake in the opening stages saw him drop to 21st place and the battle to get back into the lead group started.

Honda’s endurance specialists pushed on at the 5.922km circuit and teamed with fast pit stops from the super-slick Honda crew, it wasn’t long until Honda Endurance Racing broke back into the top-ten.

By the third pit stop as Gimbert took over from Da Costa, the team were running fourth and all eyes turned to the new Fireblade on track. With consistent lap times and super-quick pit stops, the riders pushed through the extreme track temperatures, masterfully keeping the CBR within the podiums reach.

The closing stages of the 8 Hours of Slovakia Ring were a tense affair in the Honda garage, as on track they battled with SERT for second place. But after eight hours of racing, 222 laps spun and approximately 1.315km covered, the Honda Endurance Racing team crossed the line in third place, taking their first podium finish of the 2016-2017 FIM Endurance World Championship.

After today’s result the Honda Endurance Racing team is sitting 11th in the overall championship standings and will now prepare for the final round of the Endurance World Championship; the Suzuka 8 Hours, which takes place on 28-30 July.

Around two thirds of UK road users would support a scrappage scheme for older diesel cars, vans and lorries in an effort to get the worst polluting vehicles off our roads, according to a survey by IAM RoadSmart.

The survey, by the UK’s biggest independent road safety charity, asked respondents to rate the various options put forward in the government’s recent nitrogen dioxide consultation but found that only 3% of respondents are confident that the proposed measures solve the problem quickly.

More than 1,400 people across the UK including members and non-members took part in the survey, which was conducted earlier this month.

Some 64% of those surveyed said they supported a diesel scrappage scheme, compared to 27% who did not. Most wanted any scheme to apply to cars over eight years old.

Some 83% of those surveyed by IAM RoadSmart agreed with the government’s view retro-fitting buses, coaches, HGVs, vans and black cabs with new equipment should be the priority.

However those surveyed felt the driver as an individual also has a responsibility to drive in a more eco-friendly manner. Some 75% agreed that encouraging drivers to change their driving behaviour should play a part in the government’s approach to tackling air quality.

UK drivers appear to have been influenced by the ‘dieselgate’ scandal as 67% of them either mistrust or strongly mistrust car makers to sell cars that will match consumer expectations for environmental performance.

Sarah Sillars, IAM RoadSmart Chief Executive Officer, said: “It is clear to me that the public at large feel the government needs to be decisive and proactive when it comes to making our air quality better. They see strong government direction as key to making sure it happens.

“We must not forget that drivers themselves have a part to play in the way they drive – it is within the power of each of us to become better and more eco-friendly driver and our responsibility to do so.”

She added: “It is however clear that the car manufacturers have some way to go to rebuild trust with the public - it would seem that only when their environmental claims more closely match real world performance that the trust will be on the increase. Reputations take years to build and moments to fall.”

The current heatwave means that local highway authorities have one eye on the thermometer and the other one on their road surfaces as the current high temperatures are causing some to melt.

With temperatures topping 30C, the bitumen in some road surfaces may soften and rise to the top. This makes the road surface sticky and more susceptible to pressure loads from heavy vehicles resulting in surface ridging and rutting.

Most roads will not begin to soften until they hit a temperature of around 50C. However, even a sunny day in the 20Cs can be enough to generate 50C on the ground as the dark asphalt road surface absorbs a lot of heat and this builds up during the day. The response for local highway authorities is to send out the gritters to spread granite dust or sand to absorb the soft bitumen and so stabilise the road surface and make it less sticky.

“Drivers may be bemused to see the gritters out in the summer when they are usually spreading grit and salt during the winter”, said Howard Robinson, chief executive of the Road Surface Treatments Association. “However, this is effective standard practice for keeping a road surface safe during extreme hot temperatures.”

He continued: "Asphalt is like chocolate - it melts and softens when it's hot, and goes hard and brittle when it's cold - it doesn't maintain the same strength all year round.”

Following a heatwave in 1995, the road industry introduced a new asphalt specification introducing the use of polymer modified binders in hot rolled asphalt (HRA). These polymers raise the asphalt road surface softening point to around 80C which prevents it from softening under extreme got weather. Other asphalt products such as thin surface course systems also normally contain polymer modified binders. Modified asphalts tend to be more expensive and are generally only used on heavily-trafficked roads. Robinson estimates that less than 5% of all the UK’s road surfaces contain polymer modified asphalt.  Surface dressings which are sued to seal road surfaces and restore skid resistance also now predominantly contain polymer modified binders which will resist softening during periods of hot weather.

“Melting of some roads is not surprising during this heatwave but they can be quickly treated and revert back to normal once temperatures decline,” said Robinson.

• Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne scores two podium finishes
• Shakey moves into a Showdown position
• Glenn Irwin injured following a crash on Friday