Cinderella will be at the Ball in Assen
- From: 'the Wire' | Published: April 20th, 2010 - 9:38 am
The Althea Racing team is heading to Assen, determined to be main players once more in this weekend’s racing.
The fourth round of the 2010 World Superbike Championship will take place at the Dutch track, one of the most prestigious circuits on the international motorcycling scene. 4.555kms in length, with 14 corners, it is located in the north of The Netherlands and welcomes a huge number of spectators each year, not only Dutch nationals, but also visitors from the UK, Germany and Scandinavia.
At this stage, Carlos Checa lies in third position in the overall standings, with 80 points. The Spaniard, after his win in Phillip Island and a second place finish in Valencia, left Spain safe in the knowledge that he is capable of competing against the best. Carlos has already stepped up to the podium twice at Assen, in 2008 (having also celebrated on the podium here while racing in MotoGP), while last year he only managed a seventh place finish.
Shane Byrne put together a noteworthy second race in Spain, performing better than the final result suggested, and this has helped to boost his morale. The Englishman lies in eleventh position overall, up until now his best result was a seventh place finish in Portimao. Shane finished last year’s Assen races in eighth and eleventh place.
Before leaving for Assen, Genesio Bevilacqua, team owner, commented, “We know that Assen is a track at which the Ducati is not at too much of a disadvantage. So we hope to be able to continue to build on the positive series of results achieved over the first three rounds. I hope to see Carlos on top form once more in Holland and to see Shane fight back, something we already caught a glimpse of in Valencia.”
The Superbike track schedule begins at 12.45 on Friday 23rd April with the first free practice, followed at 15.45 by the first qualifying session. On Saturday, after the second qualifying at 10.45 and the second free practice at 13.50, the Superpole gets underway at 15.00. On Sunday morning there is warm-up at 9.20 while Race 1 starts at 12.00 and Race 2 at 15.30 (both races consist of 22 laps, equal to 99.924 km). The official lap record at Assen was set by Noriyuki Haga (Ducati) in 2009, a time of 1m38.680 in an average of 166,173 km/h, while Ben Spies registered a lap time of 1m37.626 (average 167,970 km/h) during practice in 2009.
