Ten Kate Junior Team ready for 2012 Superstock season

28-03-2012

After successful tests at Aragón and Valencia, the Ten Kate Junior Team is ready for the opening race on the beautiful Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari di Imola.

The Italian round of the World Superbike Championship, which takes place from Friday, March 30 to Sunday, April 1, is the first of ten Superstock races this year. In the Superstock 600 European Championship Michael van der Mark (the Netherlands) and Bastien Chesaux (Switzerland) defend the colors of the Ten Kate Junior Team. Fabio Massei is the representative in the Superstock 1000 FIM Cup. The team is in really high spirits at the moment and everyone is looking forward to this weekend.

Michael van der Mark (STK600): “It took some time to get back into the right race rhythm after the very long winter break. Fortunately, after a few laps it was getting better and better. Both the test at Valencia and Aragón went very well. We’ve found a good set-up for the Ten Kate Racing Products Honda CBR600RR and that makes me very happy. Everybody asks about my expectations for this season but that is very difficult to say because we don't know really where we are compared to the others. It will be interesting to find out at the first race. Last season started fantastic with 25 points. Hopefully we can repeat that performance!”

Bastien Chesaux: (STK600): “Aragón was my first outing with the Ten Kate Junior Team and I didn’t expect that it would go so well. My bike was working very great and so did the mechanics. We improved the basic settings on the Honda CBR600RR and I enjoyed to work together with my teammate Michael van der Mark. He is fast and I am sure that together we can achieve success. At Valencia we have tested a lot of new settings and I also worked a lot on my driving style, looking for maximum corner speed. I'm really proud to be one of the members of Ten Kate Junior Team and looking forward to Imola.”

Fabio Massei: (STK1000): “My impressions of the first tests are very positive. Everything has been going very well, we have a good feeling with the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade and I'm feeling great. During the test days in Spain we focused mainly on the setup of the Honda and not on fast laps times. I think that we can have a good year. I want to thank the whole team and in particular team boss Ferry Schoenmakers and team manager Manuel Cappelletti.”

www.tenkatejuniorteam.com


Fotocredit: Pers Racing