The Hannspree Ten Kate Honda team had a productive weekend at Valencia. They took wins in both Supersport and Superbike, plus their substitute rider Andrew Pitt who is replacing the injured Sebastien Charpentier finished in second place. Ronald Ten Kate the team manger gave
Crash.net a run down on their weekend...
Question:
Good results in Supersport how did Andrew Pit fit into your team?
Ronald Ten Kate:
Really well, already on Friday morning after the first session he looked like he had been in my team for a couple of years already to be honest. Andrew has been a friend of the team for a couple of years and we always get on really well even with him being in a competitor team. So for him coming to the team was like coming home, he kept his head really cool even though the circumstances were really difficult with ups and downs an the weather changing every five minutes around Valencia. He did a perfect job for us; he relied a lot on his mechanics for set up of the bike and didn't make too much dramatic changes to the bike without knowing how the bike would be but in the end set up wasn't too bad.
Q:
Kenan Sofuoglu has a healthy lead in the championship; will it be hard for him to maintain this form all year?
RtK:
An early lead in the championship doesn't mean you are going to have an easy year from now onwards so he has to realise that. We will just keep working hard on the bike as it is just fresh and new to us, we will just keep developing the bike throughout the season and for Kenan who is enjoying racing so much. Sunday is his preferred day of any weekend, I'm sure he will stick his finger out to give us more race wins. I am quite sure he is not going to lose his motivation or concentration to win races from now on for us.
Q:
James Toseland had an excellent result in race two and he mentioned some changes to the bike?
RtK:
Basically we had quite a bit of chatter in the first race coming from the rear tyre, after we inspected it; it appeared that the rear tyre had spun on the wheel which caused the chatter. Also just to make sure we changed a little bit the rear suspension set up just to make fully sure. I was very happy to see him after four or five laps having a god dice with Nori out there. It made me believe that he got the good machinery for the second race so it was good.
Q:
How did
Roberto Rolfo get on?
RtK:
It was a difficult weekend for him as he missed out on Superpole. In the first race he showed quite a good pace, on the second one I was expecting a little bit more but on this tight and twisty track it is not really suiting his riding style so much. We now go to Assen which is fast and fluid and will suit him more. We are going to see if we can further improve on this, definitely for him it is a weekend to forget about.
Q:
Assen is your home round and the next race, are you looking forward to that?
RtK:
Yeah always because we can race in front of our family and relatives which is always good. The riders are also excited, it is not their home round but they see it as their second home round because of the team's base being so close to it. They will be motivated to do well there for us and results for us in past years there have been good. We just hope for some beautiful Dutch weather, lets hope we can give our family and friends a good race there.
