Ten Kate Honda pairing
Ryuichi Kiyonari and
Kenan Sofuoglu are hoping the latest round of the World Superbike Championship at Brno will signal a turnaround in their season after notching up some encouraging results.
Kiyonari was one of the stars of the weekend, the Japanese rider launching himself up the order during Superpole to just miss out on a front row slot.
Although poor starts in both races ended his hopes of challenging at the very sharp end of the field, Kiyonari still showed impressive fighting spirit to get himself up into fifth and sixth places by the end of the day.
A significant upturn in performance following a series of disappointing performances in recent rounds, the reigning British Superbike Championship was pleased with the results even if he was left ruing those bad getaways,
I had a very bad start in both races. I practiced my starts in the qualifying sessions but I just struggle in the races and loose too many positions in the first lap.
I have no problems with the settings of the machine, the feeling has been very good all weekend. The last three or four laps the bike started to misfire, but I managed keep my position.
I tried to save my front tyre but pushed too hard on the rear tyre and finished it in the last laps. My mechanics have worked hard and we've pushed hard to set the results this weekend.
It was not easy, but we found a good setting and managed to improve our pace. I'm just disappointed about the start of the race, I left too much there. If I had a good start I would have been able to set a better result.
For Sofuoglu, two tenth place finishes mark a breakthrough in what has been dismal season for him on a professional and personal level. Reeling from the death of his brother earlier in the season, Supersport Champion Sofuoglu has struggled to adapt to Superbike machinery, as shown by the fact he could only manage 26th on the grid.
However, the Turk made stellar progress up the order on race day to record only his second and third top ten finish of the season
