English  

Tu Carro De compras esta vacio

Hannspree Ten Kate Honda>> Ten Kate Supersport riders look to get back on track

May 07 2010

Ten Kate Racing - Nieuwsbrief

Kenan Sofuoglu and his Hannspree Ten Kate Honda team-mate, Michele Pirro, will be seeking improvement at this weekend’s (7-9 May) fifth round World Supersport championship race at Monza in Italy.

Sofuoglu currently lies in second place in the championship standings after finishing on the podium in all four rounds this year, including a win at Portimao in March. However, the 25-year-old 2007 world champion from Turkey was disappointed to miss out on victory at the previous Assen round, after dominating practice and starting from pole position.

Pirro, who took his first World Supersport podium at Portimao, will also be looking for improvement, particularly after crashing out of the last two rounds. The 23-year-old from San Giovanni Rotondo in south-west Italy is particularly keen to perform at the first of three ‘home’ rounds this season.

As two-time Italian Superstock champion and reigning Italian Supersport champion , Pirro has plenty of Monza experience and placed seventh in last year’s World Supersport race. Sofuoglu, meanwhile, has enjoyed mixed Monza results, winning in his 2007 championship year, but struggling with set-up problems to finish ninth in last season’s race.

The ultra-fast Monza circuit has been revised for the 2010 season, with the Prima Variante chicane at the end of the start-finish straight now opened up slightly to avoid the bottleneck situations of previous years. The circuit length is consequently shortened by 16m to 5.777km.

Kenan Sofuoglu
Although I finished third and got some more points for the championship, I was very disappointed with the result at Assen. I had planned to go back to Turkey after the race but instead I stayed behind with the team to analyse the result and to try to find out what happened. The bike was probably set up too much to do fast lap times and might have been a bit too soft to battle hard with Laverty and Lascorz, who were very strong in the race. The base setting on the bike is very good though, and we will go to Monza to try to improve more and get back on top of the championship by winning again.

Michele Pirro
It was very disappointing for me to crash at Assen, especially after my team worked so hard to give me a good bike that I was able to put on the front row of the grid. They should have had a better reward at their home race. Kenan is showing with his results how good the CBR600RR is now and I know, after Portimao, that I am able to achieve good results with it, too. I am now even more determined to get back on the podium and it would be great to do it in Italy this weekend.

Ronald ten Kate – team manager
Monza has historically produced good slipstream fighting in Superbikes, but I think we’ll see the same thing in Supersport this weekend with the leading three to five riders battling it out. For the moment, there are three riders who are clearly outstanding but I am quite sure that Michele Pirro wants to start mixing with them as soon as he can this weekend – especially as this race is in Italy.

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.