Report - First Qualifying - Ten Kate

Supersport

HANNspree Ten Kate Honda's World Supersport riders are well on the way to securing a front row start for this Saturday's race following the first qualifying practice at a sun-drenched Losail International Circuit in Qatar. Despite slippery track conditions due to an oil spill in morning practice, Kenan Sofuoglu and Sebastien Charpentier battled it out in the top four for the majority of the session. The final times were incredibly close but ended with Sofuoglu setting the third best time and team-mate Charpentier just behind him in fourth.

After setting the best lap time in the morning practice session, Sofuoglu completed 13 laps of the 5.4km track during qualifying to secure a final time of 2:03.477 - only 0.360 seconds behind fastest rider Katsuaki Fujiwara. The Turkish rider will be experimenting with the gearing on the new Honda CBR600RR to improve his position in tomorrow's final qualifying session.

Defending World Champion Charpentier finished the day on a final best lap of 2:03.744.The Frenchman currently holds the Supersport lap record at the Losail circuit, which he set during the 2006 Qatar round and he has no plans to surrender it.

Ronald ten Kate, Team Manager:
"I'm quite happy with the start of the season. We have had to do a lot of work to the bikes to find a set-up that suits the track butboth riders are happy. We will try some softer tyres tomorrow as we only had hard ones today, so I'm confident that that we can make an improvement on the times. All in all I'm really pleased - there were a lot of CBR600RRs up at the front so we know that Honda did a good job for us developing the bike over the winter. We will have to go faster tomorrow if the conditions are the same to establish a front row start."

Sébastien Charpentier
"I am feeling OK about today. It is not so bad because we were still in the top four despite the track conditions. There were a lot of crashes in the practice laps. I just made a mistake on the last corner when the bike slipped because there was still some oil residue on the track. We did not test at this circuit over the winter, therefore we have to be happy with today's performance."

Kenan Sogouglu:
"We did not do a test here so we have had to find the right set-up for the bike in the practice sessions. Tomorrow we will try a different gearing and hopefully it will work better. I think if we find a good set-up then we have a strong chance of staying on the first row."