The second day of the Valencia SBK tests proved to be not as hot as day one, but still provided a good platform for the World Superbike riders to get down to work. A light wind characterized the day but without disturbing the work in progress on track too much. For the Supersport boys, Charpentier and Sofuoglu, it was another day in front of everybody while real improvements were made by Karl and James, on the Winston Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RRs.
Tomorrow is the final day of testing before the restart of the season in Valencia on April 23, where James and Sebastien will try to attain and maintain the lead in their respective World championships.
Ronald Ten Kate – Winston Ten Kate Honda Team Manager"On the Superbike side of things we are still facing some problems to find a good set up around here. Like I said yesterday we are testing to learn more and more about this year’s machinery. James has some chattering problems at the moment, but Karl Muggeridge is not encountering this. Karl is improving step by step. I think tomorrow we will be able to solve the chatter and improve the lap times with James. On the Supersport side of things, this morning we were focussing a lot to put in some fast lap times while this afternoon we ran with a full race configuration, a lot of fuel in the tank and that was going nicely again. I think tomorrow morning will be a good time to register some fast laps and I guess we’ll see what happens."
James Toseland - SBK Winston Ten Kate Honda Rider (12th position –57 laps – Fastest lap 1’36.323)
”A bit of frustration today for me. We have been troubling to cure the bigger problem which is the chattering but in part we solved some other smaller problems. Everything we tried has not taken away the chattering completely but I am sure tomorrow we’ll make it all work like we have done in the last two races. If we look at the times we can see that we are not too far from the others, so as soon as we find our best settings we’ll be able to fight with the fastest. Tomorrow we will try some long runs and some qualifying tyres to understand what situation we’ll be in for the third round of the season, in three weeks time."
Karl Muggeridge - SBK Winston Ten Kate Honda Rider (8th position – 65 laps – Fastest lap 1’36.034)
"The time has gotten better on the second bike but bike one had some problems. This morning I hurt my back somehow and it surely didn’t help me through the afternoon session. Also, the weather wasn’t the best this afternoon, due to a quite strong wind, but apart from these things I can consider myself satisfied with the work we did today. Tomorrow we’ll concentrate on pushing the bike a bit more and try some long runs. We’ll also try some qualifying tyres that Pirelli will provide us with."
Sebastien Charpentier – WSS Winston Ten Kate Honda Rider (1st position – 38 laps – Fastest lap 1’37.437)
“This morning gave us a nice session. It has been a good day overall, the weather was beautiful for testing and I hope for a similar weather conditions for the race at the end of April. There was a bit of wind but it didn’t cause any problems. The bike is really good and the team organization is also really good, even if my chief mechanic is not here. For the moment we are ready and the situation in general is very good. For tomorrow’s sessions I will look for a fast lap time and try a new rear tyre.”
Kenan Sofuoglu – WSS Winston Ten Kate Honda Rider (2nd position – 42 laps – Fastest lap 1’38.352)
“We tried many things but I couldn’t achieve what I wanted. As I said yesterday, for me second position is OK but I just want to try to close down the gap a bit to Sebastien, who is incredibly fast. For tomorrow I will try many other settings because I feel I can improve my fastest lap time. Hopefully things will go better and, if the weather will allow us, we’ll improve our times.”
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