World Superbike 2008 - Round Eight

World Superbike 2008 - Round Eight - Misano (Spain)

Day 2 Report - HRC

Struggle continues for Ten Kate Honda Team

The HANNspree Ten Kate Honda team endured another day of struggling to get their Honda CBR1000RR on the pace at the Misano track today. Despite various changes to the set-up of their machines none of the three riders were capable to set satisfactory and consistent lap times.

Carlos Checa managed to improve his performance in the last minutes of the second qualifying session and set his best lap in 1'37.054. In the afternoon’s free practice session Checa continued on the development of his bike but struggled in finding the right tyres for the conditions in Misano. He set out on his Superpole lap to improve upon his qualifying results but failed to dip under his best time.

The Superpole session turned out to be a Ducati parade with six of the Italian manufacturer’s bikes capable of setting fast times on their ‘home track’. Only Yamaha’s Troy Corser was able to break the dominance and claimed the Superpole.

Team-mates Ryuichi Kiyonari and Kenan Sofuoglu also had a day of disappointing results. Despite the hard work to find th right set-up for their machines throughout both practice sessions both riders were not capable of qualifying for Superpole. Kiyonari and Sofuoglu will start Sunday’s race from 22nd and 24th place respectively.

Carlos Checa, 1'38.189;
“It has been difficult all weekend to find the right set-up for the bike on this track. It looked like we made some improvement in the second qualifying, but I haven’t been able to ride a perfect lap in the Superpole. We’re still struggling with the tyres, I have lost the rear of the bike quite some times. Nothing has changed much since yesterday. We are still a second behind the front runners. I can’t point out just one thing, it’s a combination of issues that makes us unable to find the right pace. We still have some work to do this evening to find some improvement. It will be a hard race tomorrow.”

Ryuichi Kiyonari, 1'38.392;
“Today feels like a lost day. We’ve spent two days qualifying and haven’t been able to improve much on our pace. My biggest struggle at the moment is the feeling with the machine. Over the last couple of weeks I have been testing the HRC bike for the 8-hours of Suzuka and am finding it hard to adjust to the Ten Kate bike again. I will have to work on my riding style to improve my lap times.”
“I'm frustrated I cannot go faster at the moment, I hope the feeling will be better tomorrow and I can work my way forward through the field.”

Kenan Sofuoglu, 1'38.895;
“I’m disappointed with my results today and am still struggling to find the right feeling with my bike. Tomorrow is another day and hopefully things will be better then. I’m trying hard, but haven’t been able to improve much.”

Ronald ten Kate, Team manager;
“It is a very difficult weekend here for us. We find ourselves struggling with the tyres. For some reason we cannot get the Pirelli tyre to work for us on the Fireblade in these conditions. At least we are not the only ones struggling, but it is still a very frustrating day. Hopefully we can improve things tomorrow, but unfortunately we can’t work magic."

Pitt claims second place on the grid

HANNspree Ten Kate Honda rider Andrew Pitt held on to his provisional front row start and set the second fastest time in today’s qualifying practice at the Misano circuit. Pitt topped the qualifying timesheet for the first part of the 45-minute session and was the first rider able to dip under the 1’40 mark before the session was interrupted by a red flag.

In the second part of the session Pitt left the box on a mission to secure a pole position start, but it was fellow Australian Broc Parkes who took the lead with a best time of 1'39.398. Pitt concluded the session with a best lap of 1'39.840, which places him on the second place on the grid for tomorrow’s race.

Jonathan Rea was sixth fastest in the session with a best lap of 1'40.151 - 0.7 of a second off Parkes’ best lap. Rea will start tomorrow’s race from the second row on the grid.

Andrew Pitt, 1'39.840;
“First row again, that’s where we need to be. The race pace is really good and the bike is working well. We still have a bit of an issue with the front end of the bike. I think we can fine-tune that before the race. We have chosen our race tyres and are running consistently fast lap times. We are still able to dip into the ‘39’s after 5 or 6 laps. I tried to go for a pole in the end but I tried too hard and missed a few apexes. We’ll be there tomorrow, everything is ready for the race.”

Jonathan Rea, 1'40.151;
“I am a bit disappointed I am not on the front row this weekend. We had another issue with the machine which is quite annoying. On my last outing when we were going to push the pace, I ran into problems with the bike and didn’t manage to improve my lap times. We are showing a good pace now and are ready for a good fight tomorrow. I really like the circuit here, even though the conditions are quite hard I have no problems with them. Normally I am quite nervous about race day, but I’m excited now and want to make it successful. I’ll be there.”

Ronald ten Kate, Team manager;
“Tomorrow’s Supersport race will become a very tough battle once again. I am satisfied with the performance of our riders today. Both Andrew and Jonathan are running the right race pace at the moment. Unfortunately Jonathan experienced some issues with his bike that prevented him from qualifying further up front. I’m confident we can resolve this and am looking forward to tomorrow’s race.”