World Superbike 2008 - Round Five

World Superbike 2008 - Round Five - Monza

Day 2 Report - HRC

HANNspree Ten Kate Honda makes good progress in Monza

The HANNspree Ten Kate Honda Superbike riders finished their second day of qualifying for the IDS Italian Round of the Superbike World Championship at Monza. Both Carlos Checa and Ryuichi Kiyonari are making their debut at the Autodromo Nazionale and placed their new CBR1000RR Fireblades on the 4th and 8th place on the grid respectively, in the Superpole qualifying.

After struggling to keep his lap times consistent in the qualifying sessions, Checa managed to find a consistent race pace and was one of the fast men in the free practice ahead of the Superpole qualifying. The third man to start his Superpole lap, Checa managed to set a satisfactory fast time and secured a front row start next to pole sitter Bayliss, Neukirchner and Haga.

Team-mate Ryuichi Kiyonari started the day as one of the fastest men in the final qualifying practice, but faced some critical moments later in the afternoon when he nearly lost control of his bike twice in his Superpole lap and will start from the second row tomorrow.

Carlos Checa, Honda CBR1000RR;
“I’m quite satisfied with the Superpole result i set this afternoon. Coming were we started from this morning, we have improved a lot.“
“We have been struggling with the setting of the bike in the qualifying sessions and have only been able to resolve it and find the right racing pace in the final part of the session.“

“I find the track quite difficult to ride, but we are stepping up. There are still some areas in which we have to improve, like in the exit of the first chicane.”

“Considering the start of the weekend I find the result positive and am confident we can have a good race tomorrow.”

Ryuichi Kiyonari, Honda CBR1000RR;
“The qualifying session this morning was a lot better for me then yesterday. The feeling with the machine is good and I start to understand the circuit a lot better and I have been able to improve my lap times.”

I’m a bit disappointed with my Superpole qualifying, but with a good start from the second row and fast first lap I can catch the top group and fight for a good result.”

"The machine is perfect, the engine is fast, the set up is good, now I can only work on myself and try to ride more smoothly in the corners. In Valencia I had a good qualifying session but couldn’t make it to the podium, tomorrow I will try and push hard for a good result and make that last step."

D.F. Racing’s Karl Muggeridge improved his yesterday’s qualifying time by one tenth and will start this afternoon’s Superpole lap in 13th position hoping to improve his grid starting place for tomorrow.

Muggas and his team were able to improve the bike a little bit to get through the bumpy corners however it just hasn’t got enough power to get a fast lap down by itself. The last outing the D.F. rider did, looked like he was going to be able to improve his qualifying time with being together with today’s fastest rider Max Neukirchner and his team mate Fonsi Nieto, but unfortunately Muggeridge was unlucky with his new rear tyre as it seemed to be out of balance and caused huge chattering problems.

Muggas comments: “It’s difficult to make a good time here by yourself, you just need that little bit of luck that you get out on the track with another couple of guys with a fast bike and then you can work together and help each other to get a good lap time in. It just didn’t work out for us this morning and the bike isn’t fast enough by itself to get to a front row. Even though we are second fastest in top speed with 322.7 km/h, it mainly means that I was breaking really late on that lap – the speed trap is in the breaking – just to clarify that you guys don’t get too excited and think we finally got a really fast bike . Well the good news of this morning is, that we are still in Superpole and we get another chance to improve our starting grid there.”

The HANNspree Ten Kate Honda Supersport team finished the final day of qualifying at the Autodromo Nazionale in Monza. Both riders qualified on the second row of the starting grid for tomorrow’s race.

Jonathan Rea made his first outing on the famous track in Monza yesterday and has proven to be a quick learner once again. He finished yesterday’s qualifying in 7th place and managed to step up to 5th place today.

Team-mate Andrew Pitt was being held up by traffic trying to benefit from a tow along the straights in the second practice session and didn’t manage to hold on to his provisional front row start. He finished the second day of qualifying in 7th place and will join Jonathan for a second row start.

Jonathan Rea, 1'50.747;

“We made a step forward with the bike in the session. My mechanics have been looking at the data and help me find some more time."

“Also I’m more familiar with the track now. Its quite hard as there’s lots of people out there looking for a tow. Its dangerous when you are on a fast lap and they are in the middle of the track waiting.”

“We are in a better position going racing now then we were this morning. The conditions we practiced in today will hopefully be similar to the ones in the race tomorrow.”

“I’m happy with the set up we’ve found, we only need to make some minor adjustments in the morning to try and warm up. Hopefully we can make a good start from row two and be there in the first corner.”

Andrew Pitt, 1'50.823;

“This just wasn’t a good session, we had a lot of traffic on the track and a few oil flags. It just stopped me from putting a good rhythm together and find a consistent pace.”

We’ll see what happens tomorrow. I didn’t really get my last tire in as we ran out of time. We missed a little bit of top speed, but I’m confident I will make up for that in the race.“