Ten Kate on the front row at Brno | World SBK
- From: 'the Wire' | Published: July 25th, 2009 - 7:09 pm
Jonathan Rea will start tomorrow’s two tenth-round World Superbike championship races at Brno from the front row of the grid after setting the fourth fastest time in this afternoon’s Superpole sessions. American Ben Spies took the pole slot at the 5.4km Czech circuit.
Despite setting the fastest time at a two-day World Superbike test in Imola, Italy last week, Rea’s performance this afternoon was a surprise to many after the Northern Irishman initially struggled to find a rhythm around the undulating Brno circuit.
However, a step forward during the first Superpole session today saw the 22-year-old set his fastest lap of the weekend. Rea then went out on a used qualifier in Superpole 3 to set his front row lap and underlined it with his fastest lap on a race tire.
Rea’s Hannspree Ten Kate Honda team-mate, Carlos Checa, will start tomorrow’s races from row three, despite running in the top five in the weekend’s free practice and regulation qualifying sessions.
The Spaniard – who crashed unhurt during free practice this afternoon – was unable to convert the additional grip from his allotted two qualifying tires into fast laps during the Superpole session and could set only the tenth fastest time.
Jonathan Rea – P4, 1’59.740 (Superpole 3)
In free practice, just before Superpole, we found something in between the two set-ups we were trying. It worked during Superpole and then I was able to set a good time on a race tire. It’s no secret we were struggling during the weekend and, although I’m now happy I can do good laps on a race tire, I haven’t been able to do a long run. But at least I can sleep a little more happily tonight. It shows how hard the team has been working. I feel like I’m really finding my feet on the Superbike now and I’m enjoying life! I hope we can keep the momentum going through to the end of the season.! I now k now I can race tomorrow, so I’m really looking forward to it.
Carlos Checa – P10, 1’59.748 (Superpole 2)
Well, the race is tomorrow and of course it would be better to start from the front two rows. However, I struggled when I put in the qualifier and couldn’t improve my lap time. Usually, you would expect to go at least one second quicker here at Brno, but today it didn’t come. The bike suddenly did not turn so well, especially on the gas and there was a lot of movement from the rear. I’m happy with the overall balance of the bike and I believe we have a good pace for tomorrow. But we need to do some more work with qualifiers to try to keep a good feeling like the race set-up.
Ronald ten Kate – team manager
We’re honestly in quite an unexpected position in a negative and a positive way. On the negative side, Carlos has been top five all weekend and our minimum goal was to help him to a start from the front two rows. Of course, his crash during the free practice just before Superpole did not help the position, but I’m still quite sure he will be a front runner tomorrow. On the positive side is Jonathan, who was struggling all weekend to find a rhythm here. We didn’t quite expect him to be able to propel himself up to the front row during Superpole. But an even bigger positive was the fact that he matched his best Superpole time with a race tire right at the end in his final outing.
Ryuichi Kiyonari will start tomorrow’s two tenth-round World Superbike championship races from the fifth row of the grid after setting the 18th fastest qualifying time at Brno today.
After beginning the weekend in good form yesterday with the sixth fastest time, the Japanese Ten Kate Honda Racing rider found it difficult in today’s free practice and qualifying sessions to improve his setup as he becomes accustomed to the new Ohlins suspension he is running in his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade.
Ryuichi Kiyonari – P18, 2’00.811s
It’s very frustrating because we have not been able to make an improvement after yesterday’s good start but everybody else has. In reality, the bike is not that much better than yesterday. I’m not sure where the main problem is because there are so many small ones. But we’ll try to eliminate a few of them tomorrow morning and I will of course try my best in both the races.
Ronald ten Kate – team manager
We’re quite puzzled by Kiyo’s problems – especially because during the Imola test last week he became quite familiar with his new settings. So far, we have struggled to give him a good feeling in the front end of his bike and we have been going through a wide range of settings looking for it. It means we might have to try something drastic in warm-up tomorrow, but we’ll look at everything again tonight to see what we need.
