In the last round, in England on 7th August, Noriyuki Haga and his Yamaha beat Troy Corser in race two, but the two races were a battleground, providing a great show, based on extreme outbraking and overtaking. It was simply a feast of racing, lapped up by 100,000 spectators.

The Championship is living in a magic moment, with five different manufacturers in the first seven championship places, underlining the highly competitive nature of the show. In the leading place Corser still strides the table, but in Brands he proved he is racing with little thought of the Championship, competing as if every race were a championship decider.

Everybody will race for the two wins on offer at Assen, a track which has been modified to be safer for all competitors. It is thus a little bit slower than previous years, but still highly demanding.

The Dutch track needs a particularly careful choice of tyres, for a host of reasons.

First of all the climatic conditions, both in terms of the temperature and the fast changes in the weather throughout the day, mean that things are always far from easy. For Pirelli this means a wide range of different solutions must be made available, in order to face all the different conditions with confidence. But this track always creates some troubles for the riders, who may be asked to take uneasy decisions when experiencing extreme conditions - like rain that falls only on some sections of the track, and not others.

Nonetheless, in the case of rain the Assen tarmac performs well: offering good grip and efficient drainage properties.

There’s something more that becomes a pivotal point of tyre choice at Assen. The tarmac also creates high temperatures on the central part of the tyre profile, due to the long fast corners and the high-speed changes of direction.

Riders will find available to them – for a dry race – four different front tyres that they have already tried this season, while at the rear they will choose among five different solutions, plus two qualifying tyres.

From the same ‘medium’ compound base Pirelli technicians wanted to obtain three different solutions. One made with a harder carcass (that will allow a more precise line) and one of 200mm width (still undergoing testing and development). The final – fifth – solution is made with a harder compound, but this one showed at Brno that it can work as well as the others. In any case, it will be interesting to see how the riders arrive at their personal decisions.

Then there will be the two qualifying tyres, one of which is a multi-compound version.

With all this rubber there will be also the intermediate and rain solutions, which drive the total amount of tyres brought solely for the SBK class close to 3,600. That total increases significantly for the entire paddock, as Pirelli is also the sole supplier for the Supersport, Superstock 1000 and Superstock 600 classes.