English  

Tu Carro De compras esta vacio

Tough season’s end for Hannspree Ten Kate Honda

October 16 2011

Hannspree Ten Kate Honda riders Florian Marino and Fabien Foret finished in fifth and twelfth places respectively in today’s final race of the 2011 World Supersport championship at Portimao in Portugal.

The race was won by newly-crowned champion Chaz Davies, but it was a frustrating end to the season for the highest-placed Honda team, especially for Foret, who also slipped from second to third in the overall standings.

Starting from the front row, Marino ran at the front in the opening laps before grip issues forced him further down the field. Foret, too, slipped down the order after starting well from his second row grid position.

Florian Marino – 5th

It was a really hard race and the grip levels were definitely down, but it was the same for everyone. I also had a problem when I let go of the brake and the bike wanted just to go straight instead of turning. I over-pushed a bit I guess, but ended up losing time. In the end, I just wanted to avoid crashing because the track was so slippery. So fifth is OK but what’s disappointing is that we finished quite far from the top.

Fabien Foret – 12th

It’s been one of the toughest weekends of the season and we really didn’t expect to have the grip problems that we had today. It seems especially bad in the last race, which is always the one you remember. But our first race this season was difficult too, so we started badly and we’ve ended badly. There have been some great moments in between this year, but also some difficult ones. I’m 50% happy and 50% frustrated because it could have been different and much better. We also lost second place in the championship, but there isn’t much difference between second and third because winning is the most important thing. Anyway, I want to thank the team for the time we’ve had this year. There is a fantastic relationship between us and it would be my great wish to spend one more year with them.

Ronald ten Kate – team manager

Although we didn’t have the season that we all wanted, I’m still reasonably happy with the outcome. We were racing until the end for second or third place in the championship and we’ve maintained our ten-year run of having at least one of our riders in the top three. Once again, we are also the top Honda finisher so it hasn’t been so bad. We had quite a lot of unexpected difficulties today on the track but the season has come to an end, and we are now looking forward to confirming the programme for 2012. It’s going to take quite a bit more work but we are all confident that we’ll be flying high again in the 2012 championship.

2011 World Supersport championship, final round Portimao, Portugal (4.592km) - 20 laps:
1 Chaz Davies (GBR) Yamaha 35m31.062s
2 David Salom (ESP) Kawasaki +1.253s
3 James Ellison (GBR) Honda +1.415s
4 Luca Scassa (ITA) Yamaha +5.222s
5 Florian Marino (FRA) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda +21.658s
12 Fabien Foret (FRA) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda +35.109s

Final championship points:
1 Chaz Davies (GBR) Yamaha 206, 2 Salom 156, 3 Foret 148, 4 Broc Parkes (AUS) Kawasaki 136, 5 Scassa 134, 8 Marino 89.