Jonathan Rea took a brace of top ten finishes for his Hannspree Ten Kate Honda team in today’s two fourth round World Superbike championship races at Assen in Holland.
The two 22-lap encounters around the historic 4.55km circuit were won by American Ben Spies and Japanese rider Noriyuki Haga – the latter extending his championship lead to 60 points.
Having qualified in 11th place on the grid, Rea had a difficult start to race one and suffered from arm pump in the later stages to take seventh place. In race two, he climbed up to fifth place, but the front runners were too far ahead to keep contact with.
His team-mate, Spaniard Carlos Checa, crashed out of race one at the end of Assen’s back straight, but fought back to take seventh in race two.
Jonathan Rea – 7th and 5th
Well, the results are better than in Valencia and, to be honest, they had to be. It’s no secret that we’ve had some problems, but we’ve done a lot of thinking in the last three weeks and I really want to thank everyone in the team who dug deep to find some solutions. We came here with a good setting and had a couple of unrelated issues in qualifying, which led to a difficult starting position, but the bike is really going in a direction now that I’m happy with. I got a really bad start in race one, which was followed by a bit of arm pump. That was much better in race two and I really started to enjoy riding the bike again. Unfortunately, by the time I got some clear track in front of me, the leading four had gone. But I’m really pumped for Monza – I feel like I’ve got a really good working relationship with the team now and we’re definitely going in the right direction.
Carlos Checa – DNF and 7th
The first race was not so good because I lost the front at the end of the back straight and that was that. In the second race there was a bit of chatter again, but I think this was to do with the tyre, because the feeling of the bike was quite good. I got bad arm pump after six laps, which made it difficult to ride.
Ronald ten Kate – team manager
I think we’ve definitely made a step forward with the CBR1000RR this weekend – unfortunately, we were not able to cash in on it today. Although we’re not satisfied with the results, we’re happy with the developments we’ve made and with the direction we’re going in. We’re now really looking forward to Monza.
2009 World Superbike championship, round four – Assen, Holland
Race one (4.55km, 22 laps) results:
1 Ben Spies (USA) Yamaha 36’31.338s
2 Noriyuki Haga (JPN) Ducati +0.154s
3 Leon Haslam (GBR) Honda +0.779
7 Jonathan Rea (GBR) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda +19.555
Race two (4.55km, 22 laps) results:
1 Noriyuki Haga (JPN) Ducati 36’31.712s
2 Leon Haslam (GBR) Honda +2.678s
3 Jakub Smrz (CZE) Ducati) +4.603
5 Jonathan Rea (GBR) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda +12.104
7 Carlos Checa (ESP) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda +17.449
Leave a Review