The second Supersport qualifying session saw HANNspree Ten Kate Honda’s Jonathan Rea firmly hold on to the provisional pole throughout most of the session, only to lose his leading position in the penultimate round to Broc Parkes.
Rea managed to show his outright pace throughout the afternoon session and was the first one to dip under the lap record set by Kenan Sofuoglu last year. Rea finished in 1'40.944 which places him on second place on the grid for tomorrow’s race.
Andrew Pitt managed to end the morning’s free practice session in 4th place but struggled to keep up his performance throughout the second qualifying. Pitt ended the session in 1'41.708 which places him on the 11th position on the grid in tomorrow’s Supersport race.
Ronald ten Kate, Team Manager;“I am pleased with the results Jonathan achieved here today and want to give a big compliment to him and his team. He has been very competitive from the start at this circuit where he has no previous experience. The team has worked hard to help him familiarise with the track and have been rewarded for their effort.”
“It looks set to become a great Supersport race tomorrow with the top 10 riders all qualifying with less then a second difference between them.”
”Pitt has had a disappointing second day of qualifying and struggles to find the pace. We have tried a lot of new things and made some alterations in the set up but were forced to return to the latest setting we used here before.”
“I am confident Pitt will play a role in tomorrow’s battle for the top places.”
Jonathan Rea, 1'40.944;”I am quite happy with my results today, but its annoying to be leading the field for most of the session and then being passed at the end.”
“We’ve tried a soft tyre and a hard tyre and managed to make both tyres run very well. We are still making our minds up on the choice for tomorrow’s race tyre. My team has done a great job making them work for me.”
“I’m happy to qualify on the front row, It gives me a clear track into turn one and we can start from there and try and put a good race together. For sure it will be really nice to be on the podium here in Assen for the team’s home race and that’s my goal for tomorrow.”
Andrew Pitt, 1'41.708;“Qualifying on the third row of the grid is not ideal for tomorrow’s race and it will be a long run to make my way to the front of the field.”
“I’ve gained more confidence with the front of the bike, after we’ve made some changes to the front forks in yesterday’s session it seems to be getting better.”
“We have done some long runs this session to test the tyres. We put one soft tyre in, instead of two or three but ran out of time at the end of the session. We probably needed another 5 or 10 minutes. We’ll have to try and make our way forward in the race tomorrow.”
