HONDA RACING INFORMATION 2014 FIM SUPERBIKE / SUPERSPORT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 02, MOTORLAND ARAGON, SPAIN SUNDAY, 13 APRIL 2014 RACE REPORT Weather: Dry, Sunny Temperature: Ambient 16/19 degrees C / Track 16/32 degrees C Attendance: 24,255 all weekend REA TAKES HIS FIRST PODIUM OF THE 2014 SEASON IN SPAIN The second round of the FIM Superbike World Championship delivered a first podium of the season to Jonathan Rea (Pata Honda World Superbike Team) who finished third in race one and then fifth in race two. His team-mate Leon Haslam (Pata Honda World Superbike Team) was ninth and then eight after finding issues in practice at the long 5.344km Motorland Aragon circuit. The Pata Honda team had conducted extensive tests at Cartagena and Jerez prior to this race and the work paid off for Rea, who is now sixth in the championship, with Haslam ninth overall after two rounds and four races. In the first race Rea was never lower than fourth and after passing the Ducati of Davide Giugliano an attempted re-pass on Jonathan ended with a collision as Giugliano and he met at the end of the long straight, exiting the hairpin turn. Giugliano fell, but Rea continued to finish third. Leon’s first race was a case of making gradual progress up the rankings from his qualifying position of 12th in the first lap to finish ninth. In the second race a front grip issue for Rea meant he could not compete for the win or a podium place, but he scored a fifth that puts him sixth in the championship overall. Haslam, battling against some issues with his corner exits and entries in race two as well as race one, was eighth, fighting to keep Toni Elias behind him at the flag after 17-tough laps. The races, each 17 laps as opposed to last year’s scheduled 20, were won by new championship leader Tom Sykes (Kawasaki) from his team-mate Loris Baz in each event. Marco Melandri (Aprilia) secured the only other podium place on offer in race two. HARD EARNED SECOND PLACE FOR BATTLING VAN DER MARK Michael van Der Mark secured his first points of the FIM Supersport World championship campaign with a second place finish at Motorland Aragon, having led the 15-lap contest for six laps at one time. Michael had been fifth on the grid but made a great start to mix it with the early race leaders. He had to give best to eventual winner Kenan Sofuoglu (Kawasaki) after two riders who were contesting the lead, Jules Cluzel (MV Agusta) and Kev Coghlan (Yamaha), collided following an attempted pass by Cluzel and both fell. Coghlan got back on to claim fifth place and take the championship lead. Van Der Mark pushed hard on the closing laps but could not catch Sofuoglu and finished only 0.869 seconds from the race win. Florian Marino (Kawasaki) took the final podium place. Lorenzo Zanetti (Pata Honda World Supersport Team) enjoyed his comeback ride after injuring his finger at the first round finishing fourth, having qualified seventh in the new look single qualifying session on Saturday. He took his first points and is now eighth in the table with almost an entire season in front of him. Phillip Island podium rider Raffaele De Rosa (Core PTR Honda) put in a hard ride from 12th place on the grid to sixth, and went third in the championship table. He is the best-ranked Honda rider so far, after two rounds. Ratthapark Wilairot (Core PTR Honda) learned more about WSS racing in only his second race in this class, and finished in the top ten after outbraking himself at the end of the long back straight at Motorland. His tenth place put him just one place ahead of another rider returning from injury, Jack Kennedy (CIA Insurance Honda) who was 11th today, he had to battle against the pain of his recently broken ankle and despite dropping back in the race after making a mistake he recovered strongly at the end. Marco Bussolotti (Team Lorini Honda) finished out of the points by one position in 16th, while his team-mate Riccardo Russo (Team Lorini Honda) did not score, retiring after running into the gravel traps. Fraser Rogers (Com Plus SMS Racing) was 19th and Nacho Calero (CIA Insurance Honda) was 20th of the 20 finishers. The next round for all categories in the SBK paddock is at the classic circuit of Assen, with raceday on Sunday 27th April. HONDA RIDER COMMENTS: Jonathan Rea (Pata Honda World Superbike Team) Race result: 3rd / 5th Championship position: 6th “It’s been a really positive weekend for us to go back on the podium this early in the season. It hasn’t really been a trend for us recently so it’s given everyone a bit of a boost. We just really need to build on this. I really enjoy riding the bike at this circuit and we’ve made a lot of improvements since Phillip Island. In race one I ran into some rear tyre problems in the latter stages of the race, but in race two we went with the softer option, which most of the grid changed to. It was working OK but unfortunately we also used the softer front for the higher temperature. I had a few engine brake problems, which pushed me into the slower corners and, with the lack of feeling from the front, I felt a bit like a passenger. I had a warning or two around mid-race, so I was kind of nursing it a bit. But we deserved two solid top fives today and I feel we can now take some momentum to Assen where we know the bike is good and build on this at a circuit I really enjoy.” Leon Haslam (Pata Honda World Superbike Team) Race result: 9th / 8th Championship position: 9th “We definitely started here on the back foot and lost a lot of the first session on Friday. From that point we worked really well and I was feeling confident. Just before Superpole yesterday I posted the fourth fastest time and knocked time off in every session, but then I had the crash in Superpole, which wasn’t so good. I struggled in both races though – battling with throttle opening and engine braking. We had a couple of good top ten finishes but, in FP4 yesterday, I really felt I could be challenging for top five today. I’m glad this one is out of the way and we can start to focus on Assen. We’ve made big leaps with the bike in recent testing and, in my opinion, the results don’t show that and we struggled. But Jonathan had a fantastic first race and he was up there in race two. We’re coming across a few more problems at the moment but we know we’ll get on top of it.” Michael van der Mark (Pata Honda World Supersport Team) Race result: 2nd Championship position: 6th “It was a real tough weekend to be honest. In practice we were not hard enough but we did a lot of thinking and the guys in the garage worked so hard to find a solution because we had some strange issues. This morning in warm up I showed that the race pace we had was quite good so I knew we would be all right. The start was good and I was really aggressive in the first few laps. The bike was really fast and I tried to pull away when I took the lead. I did not get a bigger gap than 0.3 so I had to keep pushing. I made a mistake and then some guys came past me and made another mistake again. But I knew I had the pace for the podium. Jules and Kev crashed so it was just Kenan and I left in it at the end and I tried to push but Kenan had the same pace as me up ahead. I am really happy for this podium because we just needed it after Australia!” Lorenzo Zanetti (Pata Honda World Supersport Team) Race result: 4th Championship position: 8th “I’m happy to come back to racing with this result. I started not too bad and was immediately with the leading group. My strategy was to stay with them, not to fight and get into a good rhythm and that was going OK until I made a mistake. It changed the rhythm a bit and when Cluzel and Coghlan crashed I tried to pressurise Marino but he pushed a bit more. Fourth place is not so bad for my condition but I need to work now on podium finishes. I finished too many times in fourth place last year so it’s necessary to go to the next step. The target is the podium.” Raffaele De Rosa (CIA Insurance Honda) Race result 6th Championship Position 3rd “It was always going to be difficult from 12th on the grid and top six was my target. I got held up slightly at the start and then the group fighting for the lead got away. Once I got some clear track I was able to ride and set good competitive lap times. Next time at Assen we need to qualify better so we can race at the front again.” Ratthapark Wilairot (Core PTR Honda) Race result: 10th Championship position: 16th I understand more about the bike but today I felt the engine was a little bit slower than de Rosa’s bike. When I caught him in the back straight I had to brake later than him for the same line. I think I tried to brake a little too late at one corner, could not stop the bike, and went out for a short time. I tried to finish the race the best I could. I am happy about the chassis and the work we are doing on the front and back and I know the limit on the front. This is the first race we have finished in WSS but we are a bit far from the top, so we will have to work hard in Assen. Jack Kennedy (CIA Insurance Honda) Race result: 11th Championship position: 17th “My start wasn’t too bad and I held my own position. I was on a group fighting for the top eight or top ten positions and I felt I could push on to the front of that group. Then I made a little mistake and ran on at the end of the back straight, going into the hairpin. I cost myself a lot of time there and went back to about 15th place with five laps to go. I dug deep and wanted some points out of today so I got back up to 11th place. We have been a bit behind with my ankle injury so we can take all the positives from this and go to Assen strong.” RESULTS SUPERSPORT RACE : (Laps 15 = 80,160 Km) POS / RIDER / NAT. / TEAM / MOTORCYCLE / GAP 1 / K. SOFUOGLU / TUR / MAHI Racing Team India / Kawasaki ZX-6R / 3043.276 2 / M. VD MARK / NED / PATA Honda World Supersport / Honda CBR600RR / 0.869 3 / F. MARINO / FRA / Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres / Kawasaki ZX-6R / 9.091 4 / L. ZANETTI / ITA / PATA Honda World Supersport / Honda CBR600RR / 10.475 5 / K. COGHLAN / GBR / DMC Panavto-Yamaha / Yamaha YZF R6 / 15.194 6 / R. DE ROSA / ITA / CIA Insurance Honda / Honda CBR600RR / 18.579 7 / R. TAMBURINI / ITA / San Carlo Puccetti Racing / Kawasaki ZX-6R / 19.059 8 / V. LEONOV / RUS / MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich M. / MV Agusta F3 675 / 19.666 9 / C. GAMARINO / ITA / Team GO Eleven / Kawasaki ZX-6R / 19.846 10 / R. WILAIROT / THA / Core PTR Honda / Honda CBR600RR / 20.077 11 / J. KENNEDY / IRL / CIA Insurance Honda / Honda CBR600RR / 24.569 12 / R. ROLFO / ITA / Team GO Eleven / Kawasaki ZX-6R / 25.187 13 / D. SCHMITTER / SUI / HAGN-SKM Racing Team / Yamaha YZF R6 / 25.535 14 / P. JACOBSEN / USA / Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres / Kawasaki ZX-6R / 28.843 15 / F. MENGHI / ITA / VFT Racing / Yamaha YZF R6 / 28.904 16 / M. BUSSOLOTTI / ITA / Team Lorini / Honda CBR600RR / 33.148 17 / T. COVEÑA / NED / Kawasaki Ponyexpres Intermoto / Kawasaki ZX-6R / 43.243 18 / F. ROGERS / GBR / Com Plus SMS Racing / Honda CBR600RR / 56.196 19 / A. IVANOV / RUS / DMC Panavto-Yamaha / Yamaha YZF R6 / 56.460 20 / N. CALERO / ESP / CIA Insurance Honda / Honda CBR600RR / 111.373 Fastest Lap: 9° Jules Cluzel 201.708 158,070 Km/h Lap Record: 2013 S. Lowes 202.498 157,050 Km/h Best Lap: 2013 S. Lowes 201.425 158,440 Km/h CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS TILL DATE: 1 COGHLAN 31, 2 MARINO 29, 3 DE ROSA 26, 4 SOFUOGLU 25, 5 CLUZEL 25, 6 VD MARK 20, 7 TAMBURINI 20, 8 ZANETTI 13, 9 GAMARINO 13, 10 WAHR 10, 11 GOWLAND 9, 12 ROLFO 9, 13 LEONOV 8, 14 RUSSO 8, 15 MENGHI 8, 16 WILAIROT 6, 17 KENNEDY 5, 18 COVEÑA 4, 19 SCHMITTER 3, 20 CALERO 3. SUPERBIKE RACE1: (Laps 17 = 90,848 Km) POS / RIDER / NAT. / TEAM / MOTORCYCLE / GAP 1 / T. SYKES / GBR / Kawasaki Racing Team / Kawasaki ZX-10R / 3338.583 2 / L. BAZ / FRA / Kawasaki Racing Team / Kawasaki ZX-10R / 4.275 3 / J. REA / GBR / PATA Honda World Superbike / Honda CBR1000RR / 8.418 4 / C. DAVIES / GBR / Ducati Superbike Team / Ducati 1199 Panigale R / 15.715 5 / E. LAVERTY / IRL / Voltcom Crescent Suzuki / Suzuki GSX-R1000 / 19.305 6 / S. GUINTOLI / FRA / Aprilia Racing Team / Aprilia RSV4 Factory / 21.998 7 / T. ELIAS / ESP / Red Devils Roma / Aprilia RSV4 Factory / 24.018 8 / D. GIUGLIANO / ITA / Ducati Superbike Team / Ducati 1199 Panigale R / 27.894 9 / L. HASLAM / GBR / PATA Honda World Superbike / Honda CBR1000RR / 29.077 10 / A. LOWES / GBR / Voltcom Crescent Suzuki / Suzuki GSX-R1000 / 29.863 11 / M. MELANDRI / ITA / Aprilia Racing Team / Aprilia RSV4 Factory / 34.820 12 / L. CAMIER / GBR / BMW Motorrad Italia SBK / BMW S1000 RR EVO / 35.255 13 / D. SALOM / ESP / Kawasaki Racing Team / Kawasaki ZX-10R EVO / 43.975 14 / J. GUARNONI / FRA / MRS Kawasaki / Kawasaki ZX-10R EVO / 46.721 15 / S. MORAIS / RSA / IRON BRAIN Grillini Kawasaki / Kawasaki ZX-10R EVO / 56.619 16 / L. SCASSA / ITA / Team Pedercini / Kawasaki ZX-10R EVO / 116.469 17 / A. YATES / USA / Team Hero EBR / EBR 1190 RX / 135.047 18 / I. TOTH / HUN / BMW Team Toth / BMW S1000 RR / 148.427 19 / A. ANDREOZZI / ITA / Team Pedercini / Kawasaki ZX-10R EVO / 151.222 20 / P. SEBESTYEN / HUN / / BMW S1000 RR EVO / 201.152 Fastest Lap: 2° Tom Sykes 157.664 163,503 Km/h Lap Record: 2013 T.Sykes 157.973 163,070 Km/h Best Lap: 2013 T.Sykes 156.339 165,370 Km/h RACE2: (Laps 17 = 90,848 Km) POS / RIDER / NAT. / TEAM / MOTORCYCLE / GAP 1 / T. SYKES / GBR / Kawasaki Racing Team / Kawasaki ZX-10R / 3337.223 2 / L. BAZ / FRA / Kawasaki Racing Team / Kawasaki ZX-10R / 0.338 3 / M. MELANDRI / ITA / Aprilia Racing Team / Aprilia RSV4 Factory / 0.470 4 / S. GUINTOLI / FRA / Aprilia Racing Team / Aprilia RSV4 Factory / 5.429 5 / J. REA / GBR / PATA Honda World Superbike / Honda CBR1000RR / 8.861 6 / E. LAVERTY / IRL / Voltcom Crescent Suzuki / Suzuki GSX-R1000 / 15.986 7 / D. GIUGLIANO / ITA / Ducati Superbike Team / Ducati 1199 Panigale R / 18.206 8 / L. HASLAM / GBR / PATA Honda World Superbike / Honda CBR1000RR / 25.513 9 / T. ELIAS / ESP / Red Devils Roma / Aprilia RSV4 Factory / 25.823 10 / D. SALOM / ESP / Kawasaki Racing Team / Kawasaki ZX-10R EVO / 38.949 11 / N. CANEPA / ITA / Althea Racing / Ducati 1199 Panigale R EVO / 39.413 12 / L. CAMIER / GBR / BMW Motorrad Italia SBK / BMW S1000 RR EVO / 41.486 13 / S. MORAIS / RSA / IRON BRAIN Grillini Kawasaki / Kawasaki ZX-10R EVO / 102.587 14 / L. SCASSA / ITA / Team Pedercini / Kawasaki ZX-10R EVO / 109.720 15 / F. FORET / FRA / MAHI Racing Team India / Kawasaki ZX-10R EVO / 114.046 16 / A. ANDREOZZI / ITA / Team Pedercini / Kawasaki ZX-10R EVO / 114.233 17 / A. YATES / USA / Team Hero EBR / EBR 1190 RX / 135.195 18 / I. TOTH / HUN / BMW Team Toth / BMW S1000 RR / 137.781 19 / P. SEBESTYEN / HUN / BMW Team Toth / BMW S1000 RR EVO / 154.547 20 / G. MAY / USA / Team Hero EBR / EBR 1190 RX / 157.166 Fastest Lap: 2° Chaz Davies 157.982 163,062 Km/h Lap Record: 2014 T.Sykes 157.664 163,500 Km/h Best Lap: 2012 T. Sykes 136.950 163,790 Km/h CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS TILL DATE: 1 SYKES 75, 2 BAZ 71, 3 GUINTOLI 64, 4 MELANDRI 49, 5 REA 48, 6 LAVERTY 46, 7 GIUGLIANO 43, 8 DAVIES 30, 9 HASLAM 25, 10 ELIAS 23, 11 SALOM 22, 12 CANEPA 16, 13 LOWES 9, 14 FORET 9, 15 CAMIER 8, 16 MORAIS 7, 17 ALLERTON 6, 18 GUARNONI 4, 19 CORTI 3, 20 SCASSA 2. NEXT EVENT: ROUND03, APRIL 27, ASSEN, THE NETHERLANDS.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 06:18:00 +0000
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