WSBK – WSBK: the CBR1000RR at Assen, the 600 at Silverstone … – Used HONDA

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WSBK: CBR1000RR at Assen, 600 at Silverstone…

WSBK - WSBK: the CBR1000RR at Assen, the 600 at Silverstone ... - Used HONDA

Sunday in Misano, the official Fireblades of Rea and Aoyama were from Wednesday in Assen for two days of testing. For their part, the CBR600RR of Cluzel and Lowes will compete in the first edition of the Silverstone 200, on the sidelines of MotoGP this weekend..

Just three days after the World Superbike event in San Marino (read our, then), the official Honda Ten Kate team went to "its" Assen circuit, located 65 km from its headquarters, in order to work on his machines…

Rea and Aoyama are training in their corner

The Dutch track was a bit dirty and slippery this Wednesday morning, so the little cleaning session slightly delayed the entry into action of the two official Honda riders Jonathan Rea and Hiroshi Aoyama.

"It took a little while to put some rubber on the track, but in the end it went pretty well", declared the English pilot last night, visibly very satisfied with his two days of very private tests.

"We tried a bunch of new things, some that we didn’t want to test on the race weekend, and we ended up being faster than the race weekend in April.", rejoices Johnny who, as a reminder, had set the second fastest time in Superpole at Assen this year … But a big second from the incredible time of Sykes !

Member of the Ten Kate team since 2008 – in Supersport the first year and then in Superbike – "JR" knows the route of the Cathedral on the tips of his gloves, which allows him to detect the slightest effects of the modifications made to his Fireblade.

"The new engine was a little better on the straights but we will not draw any definitive conclusions until we are in Aragon with our rivals.Because it is on the Spanish circuit – which has an endless straight line – that the next World Superbike event will be held in less than three weeks. !

Next week, moreover, most of the competing teams will settle in Aragon in order to prepare for the eighth round of the calendar, and for the second half of the season in general. This shows the importance for the Honda clan these two days spent in Assen…

Jonathan therefore applied himself to collecting as much data as possible in order to perfect electronic management software – it is now the sinews of war – and seems satisfied with the progress made in this area, but not only !

"The throttle grip is smoother", details the n ° 65 of the Honda team, currently second in the championship,"and we tested a new rather radical front fork tuning which offers a good feeling".

On the other side of the box, Hiroshi Aoyama continued his hard work … Indeed, the last GP 250 champion is slow to find his marks on the big Honda wearing Pirelli tires softer than the Bridgestones he was riding. year spent in MotoGP. During the first thirteen races, the n ° 4 has scored points only seven times and is only in 16th position in the provisional !

And as if we had to add more: "I fell to something like 236 km / h yesterday !", exposes the Japanese pilot, always smiling."I fell at the end of the straight line. I slid on the asphalt for a while and was almost done by the time I finally pulled over !", he almost laughs.

"Other than that, the tests were very positive for me and we tested a few things that I liked. We improved the stability under braking, and that gives me a lot more confidence", assures in particular Aoyama San.

"I will catch my breath now and prepare for Aragon, which is not so far from my residence in BarcelonaIt will therefore be a sort of home race for Hiroshi, since the World Superbike does not stop in Japan….

Jules Cluzel in race mode at Silverstone

On the sidelines of MotoGP this weekend will be the first edition of the Silverstone 200: two races of 100 km (i.e. 16 laps) open to all makes and models of motorbike with a volume between 600 and 1200 cc … Two races in which Jules Cluzel and his Honda PTR teammate Sam Lowes will take part !

Among the participants are also big names of the English superbike such as Shane Byrne and Stuart Easton on their Kawasaki ZX-10R prepared by Paul Bird and his team Rapid Solicitors, or Michael Laverty – brother of Eugene – and Jon Kirkham of the Honda team. Samsung.

Other stars of the 2012 British Superbike championship will line up: Gary Mason, Tristan Palmer, Luke Quigley, John Laverty – the third brother! -, Aaron Zanotti and Britain’s fastest girl Jenny Tinmouth … not to mention our expatriate Florian Marino, also present for the occasion !

"It will be interesting to see how our Supersports fare against the best British Superbikes."Says rising WSSP star Sam Lowes, though"given the fast nature of the track, it might be hard".

His team-mate Jules Cluzel considers above all this meeting, to say the least original and unexpected, as an opportunity to test his CBR600RR. "I already know the track thanks to Moto2, I won the race in the dry in 2010 and finished 4th in the wet in 2011", recalls the French.

Our Coq supersportif therefore intends to take advantage of this ride to fine-tune the settings of his Honda and thus, "help me overtake Kenan Sofuoglu in the Supersport World Championship standings later in the season".

The British round of the Mondial Supersport and the two rounds of the Mondial Superbike will be contested at Silverstone on August 5th. Jules will be a few steps ahead of the Turk … but will have to be wary of his English teammate. Stay connected !

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