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HANNspree Ten Kate Honda >> Tough day for Hannspree riders in Misano heat

June 25 2010

Ten Kate Racing - Nieuwsbrief

Jonathan Rea and Max Neukirchner endured two tough sessions in today’s openers for Sunday’s two eighth round World Superbike championship races at Misano in Italy as Britain’s Cal Crutchlow set the provisional pole time. In 30+ degree temperatures this afternoon, the Hannspree Ten Kate Honda riders both suffered from handling issues in trying to set up their Honda CBR1000RR machines for Misano’s 4.226km blend of fast sweepers and slower hairpins.

Rea, who took his debut Superbike victory here last season, finished this afternoon’s first qualifying session in an unfamiliar 16th place, as Neukirchner also struggled, setting the 18th fastest lap time.

A two-day test at Assen last week demonstrated some progress, but not enough to battle today with the championship’s leading riders, most of whom have tested at Misano recently.

Jonathan Rea – P16
We seem to have been suffering the same problem, but we’ve not been able to fix it and it’s becoming quite frustrating to deal with. I’m keeping my spirits up because I know I have the speed inside me and I’ll just have to be patient until we can find a setting that I’m able to use to push the bike hard. To say I’m disappointed with today’s results is an understatement, but everyone else has managed to pick up a level at the circuit where we know the bike was good last year. We actually tried last year’s settings this afternoon and the bike turned faster but the chatter was still there. We’ll just have to hope for something better tomorrow.

Max Neukirchner – P18
This morning in free practice we tried some new things and felt we made a bit of a step forward, but we weren’t able to maintain that this afternoon. The track got quite slippery in the qualifying session, but it was the same for everyone, so that’s no excuse. The chatter definitely felt worse in the faster turns, so we’ll just have to sit down later, go through everything again, and see if we can find a solution that works better in the morning.

Ronald ten Kate – team manager
We always knew that today was going to be tough because we didn’t test here like a lot of the other teams. But today actually went way beyond our expectations. We really need to resolve this chatter issue, so it’s going to be a long night for a lot of the guys for sure. We’ll try to shape up and improve things in the morning but we already know, from last year’s race, what Jonathan is capable of. We’ll have to push the right buttons for tomorrow.

HANNspree Ten Kate Honda is sponsored by Hotbodies Racing and uses our windscreens and bodywork on all of their bikes. Hotbodies Racing specializes in manufacturing high-performance parts for high-performance sportbikes and is the market leader in Windscreens, Undertails, Huggers, Flush-Mount Signals, MGP and Megaphone Exhausts, and full-race Bodywork.  Hotbodies Racing supports the sport with sponsorships around the world, and encourages dealer and distributor inquiries.  For more information visit: www.hotbodiesracing.com