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HANNspree Ten Kate Honda >> Superbike Duo heads to Monza

May 07 2009

Ten Kate Racing - Nieuwsbrief

Hannspree Ten Kate Honda’s Jonathan Rea and Carlos Checa travel to Monza in Italy this weekend (8-10 May) for round five of the 2009 World Superbike championship.

After an indifferent start to the season, the Honda CBR1000RR-mounted pair left the last round at Assen with a more positive feeling for the bike after the team undertook further development work following some disappointing results in round three at Valencia.

Rea reaped most from his crew’s efforts and took a seventh and a fifth in the two Dutch races, hindered by some misfortune during Superpole, which led to a relatively lowly qualifying position. However, the 22-year-old Northern Ireland resident left Assen feeling confident and is relishing the weekend’s high-speed battle that Monza invariably delivers.

Last season, Checa did not enjoy a fruitful visit to the circuit that nestles in a royal park near Milan, finishing eighth in race one and crashing out of the second outing. The Spaniard, however, is confident of improvement this year.

The historic 5.8km Monza circuit is steeped in motorsport legend and, with its long straights punctuated by such iconic features as the Parabolica and the Ascari chicane, is renowned for spectacular slipstreaming battles at speeds of more than 300kph.

Jonathan Rea
Assen was much more positive for the whole team after a difficult first few rounds. We made some progress with the bike after Valencia and we were able to confirm our findings at Assen. I had some problems during Superpole which led to difficult starts but the races were OK when everything settled down. Monza is very fast, which should suit the bike quite well. I didn’t have much luck last year and lost the clutch in the Supersport race, but it’s an amazing circuit – unlike anywhere else in the world – and it has some really nice features. I’ll be going there hoping to reward my crew for all the hard work they’ve put in over the last few weeks.

Carlos Checa
Last year at Monza was not so good for me so I am very confident that things will be better when we visit this season. It’s a very historic circuit and has a great name in motorsport and it has its own special character. As usual, I’m hoping for some good weather that will allow us to get near the front as soon as possible. It might take a little longer this time because our main rivals tested there before Assen but, by Saturday, I hope we’ll be up there. Everyone in the team has been working really hard and there’s a good atmosphere. I don’t think we’ll have an issue with the bike’s power so I aim to be fighting at the front in Sunday’s races.

Ronald ten Kate – team manager
Assen showed us that the developments we made with the bike after Valencia were definitely in the right direction so in Monza we’ll aim to take that development up another step. We haven’t had the best start to the season but we’re confident that we can turn things around during the rest of the year.

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.