Español

Your shopping cart is empty

HANNspree Ten Kate>> No joy for Ten Kate Supersport team

May 19 2009

Ten Kate Racing - Nieuwsbrief

Kenan Sofuoglu and Andrew Pitt finished in fifth and sixth places respectively in today’s sixth round World Supersport race at Kyalami. The race was won by fellow Honda-mounted Eugene Laverty in emphatic style.

Starting from the front row, Sofuoglu leaped into an early lead but very quickly found himself lacking grip both at the front and rear of his CBR600RR. Pitt, too, made a good start and ran in third place before forcing his way past his Hannspree Ten Kate Honda team-mate on lap three.

Sofuoglu slipped down the leading pack to sixth but rallied later in the race and looked like achieving a podium finish after Fabien Foret crashed out of third place. However, the Turkish ace clashed with Joan Lascorz in the last two corners – allowing Honda rider Mark Aitchison to snatch third.

Pitt meanwhile suffered the same grip problems as his team-mate from early in the race and could only manager sixth place at the flag.

Kenan Sofuoglu – fifth
I had a good start and the first lap or two was not so bad. But I started to lose grip very quickly and, when Andrew came past, I lost some rhythm and went backwards. It wasn’t a very good move from Lascorz at the end and it cost me third place, but we were very slow today and maybe didn’t deserve a podium. It’s just not normal to be slow like this, because nothing changed from yesterday when everything was OK.

Andrew Pitt – sixth
I saw after a couple laps that Laverty was disappearing and had to put a move on Kenan, but even then I nearly crashed I had so little grip. It was like that every lap for the rest of the race – like riding on ice. I was losing the front everywhere, the back was coming round on me under braking. We tried something different in warm-up this morning, but that didn’t work so we went back to yesterday, which was pretty good. I don’t know what’s happened since then, but it was all I could do to bring it home.

Ronald ten Kate – team manager
We are obviously quite upset by these results, because yesterday both riders managed to do a lot of 1m41s laps. Today, in the race, Kenan and Andrew had to give everything just to stay in the 42s. If you’re off the pace all weekend, you cannot expect podium finishes. But this is quite the opposite and it just doesn’t reflect the pace that we have shown in free practice and qualifying.

2009 World Supersport championship, round six – Kyalami, South Africa
Results (4.24km – 23 laps):
1 Eugene Laverty (IRL) Honda 39’01.061s
2 Cal Crtuchlow (GBR) Yamaha +2.546s
3 Mark Aitchison (AUS) Honda +17.358s
4 Joan Lascroz (ESP) Kawasaki +17.454s
5 Kenan Sofuoglu (TUR) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda +18.221s
6 Andrew Pitt (AUS) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda +20.561s

Championship points after six of 14 rounds:
Crutchlow 119, Laverty 106, Sofuoglu 83, Pitt 64, Lascorz 60 Anthony West (AUS) Honda 60.

Next round: Miller Motorsports Park, Salt Lake City, USA – 31 May

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 North American distribution of KR Tuned performance parts. Hotbodies Racing is the market leader in Undertails, Huggers, Windscreens, Flush-Mount Signals, Megaphone Exhausts and full-race Bodywork. Hotbodies Racing supports the sport with sponsorship around the world and encourages dealer and distributor inquiries. For more information visit: www.HOTBODIESRACING.com.