The home race for the DeGraaf Grand Prix Team during the A-Style Dutch TT Assen started today. The DeGraaf Grand Prix Team is riding this weekend with two Dutch riders with permenant GP-rider Hugo van den Berg and the 2007 Junior Cup champion Jerry van de Bunt. Van den Berg qualified on a provisional 25th position. Stevie Bonsey wasn’t happy with the qualification and ended up on a disappointed 21st position.
In the free practice this morning Hugo van den Berg started good and rode the 23rd lap time in the timesheets. In the third section Van den Berg lost a lot but after some adjustments on the front suspension he closes the gap to 0.1 second. Stevie Bonsey had a good session this morning and parked his Aprilia on a 9th spot. Jerry van de Bunt is making his GP and TT debut on the Assen track. After a heavy back injury it was for the 15-year old boy the first time again to ride a race bike. Van de Bunt equals his best time ever on the Assen circuit and ended up on the 38th spot.
In the qualification the complete 125GP field started with very fast lap times. Hugo van den Berg had problems to get in the low 1:48 lap times during the first half of the session. After Van den Berg came into the pitlane to change his rear tyre, he could ride fast lap times and even rode a 1:47,458 and ended up on a promising 25th position.
Stevie Bonsey hadn’t a good qualification and struggled to ride good lap times. After the good morning session Bonsey wasn’t able to ride the same lap times and dropped back to a 21st position. Boney isn’t satisfied yet with the set-up of his bike and going to use the Friday morning session to create a good set-up.
Jerry van de Bunt rode a very good qualification. The rider form the Dutch village Nijkerkerveen knowledge to rode 2 seconds faster than his best time ever on the TT-Circuit. Van de Bunt had still a lot of pain but a 37th position isn’t too bad. Van de Bunt will get a massage from Dr. Costa and hopes to ride faster tomorrow.
Hugo van den Berg (25th, 1:47,458):“In the morning session we changed a lot to the suspension and in the qualification it felt much better. I started in a group what didn’t help me to go faster. I changed my rear tyre for a new one and found a good group and could improve my lap time with nearly a second. I’m glad that I’m within 2 seconds of the provisional pole and I want to bring the gap back to 1, 5 seconds. We will se tomorrow how it goes.”
Stevie Bonsey (21st, 1:47,077): “I’m not happy with this qualification. The morning session went good but the second session was horrible. I was really searching for the right gears. I don’t understand what’s happening because I had the same gearbox and gearing as the test we did a couple of weeks ago. Well, we have a lot of work to do and I hope it will be better tomorrow.”
Jerry van de Bunt (37th, 1:51,560):“I really had to get use to riding again after four weeks of doing nothing. My back is pretty ok but it still hurts a lot when I’m riding. I try to don’t think about the pain. I’m pretty satisfied with my lap time but for this level you need another two seconds to be competitive. The team is really a great help to me and especially suspension man Damion I like. He really knows what I feel on the track and how the bike reacts. I only have to tell him what the bike is doing and he changes some things and it is working! I can handle the pain in my back at the moment and Dr. Costa will help me with that. I think I can make a lot of improvement tomorrow.”
