TWO MORE CHANCES FOR REA TO SHINE UNDER THE PORTUGUESE SUN
. By Bikeland Staff
Jonathan Rea (Pata Honda World Superbike Team)
had his first Superbike ride for his Dutch based
team at the Portimao round of the 2008 FIM
Superbike World Championship and he returns there
for the sixth round of the championship keen to
get his first 2013 season race win on the board.
Jonathan has already scored a second place at
Assen on his 2013 specification CBR1000RR but at
Portimao in the recent past he has secured no
fewer than six podiums. He is yet to win a race
at the 4.592km venue, located in the hills behind
the most popular holiday resorts on the Algarve
coast, and would love to score his first victory
of 2013 there to start his march back up the
championship points table from his current seventh place.
Leon Haslam (Pata Honda World Superbike Team) had
recovered sufficiently from his broken left leg
to try and race at his home round of Donington in
late May but he was not quite ready to face two
full Superbike contests. Haslam has now regained
a lot more mobility and bend in his left knee
after his tibia and fibula break at Assen in late
April and he feels he should be able to race for
good points scoring positions at this forthcoming round.
Leon is also rider who knows how to get to the
podium at Portimao, as he first did on a
CBR1000RR way back in a privateer season in 2008.
The Portimao track is a superbly designed venue
albeit contained in a limited amount of space.
Since it first opened it has provided a tough
challenge for all riders, simply because of its
many dramatic dips and elevations, with multiple
blind corner entries and short straights that
ensure the riders of a modern-day SBK machines
get virtually no breathing space between corners.
Even the main straight, approached at a fast
pace, has a rise that becomes almost a jump at
the beginning and then onto a downhill approach to the first corner.
After the Portimao weekend is completed the SBK
circus heads to Italy for the second time in
2013, for a visit to another hilly and physical
racetrack, Imola. The classic Italian venue hosts the seventh round on June 30.
ROLLERCOASTER RIDE COMING UP FOR HONDA’S WSS RIDERS
Lorenzo Zanetti (Pata Honda World Supersport
Team) and his team-mate Michael van der Mark
(Pata Honda World Supersport Team) are currently
fourth and fifth respectively in the FIM
Supersport World Championship standings with the
Portuguese event about to take place on Sunday 9 June.
As each Pata Honda rider is a rookie in this
class taking their CBR600RR machines to the limit
around the unique ‘rollercoaster’ of the 4.592km
track in the hills above the Algarve will be a
thrilling new experience. They have each raced at
Portimao before, Van der Mark on a Superstock 600
Honda, on which he won both of the most recent
races in Portugal. Zanetti has also ridden at
Portimao in recent seasons, on large capacity
Superstock and Superbike machines.
Jack Kennedy (Rivamoto Honda) is another class
rookie who has shown pace and ability in 2013,
having scored his personal best of sixth last
time out at Donington. He has tested at Portimao,
although in changeable and wet conditions last
winter, so at least he will know which way the
incredibly undulating and sinuous track goes when
he goes out for the first practice session on Friday.
Portimao is no mystery to Sheridan Morais (PTR
Honda) as he took a podium place there in
Superstock 1000 racing in 2011. After struggling
with recent injury he is looking to Portimao as a
place to improve on his previous best result in 2013, sixth.
Luca Marconi (PTR Honda) is two places behind
Morais in the championship table, 16th, and now
looking for more top ten finishes to realize his
ambitions in this class of racing.
It is a similar story for former 125cc GP
Champion Gabor Talmacsi (PRORACE Honda) as he
continues to unlock the secrets of WSS
competition. He has raced at Portimao before and
understands how much preparation needs to go into
this intense circuit, which features so many
blind corner entries and elevation changes.
Currently Gabor is 23rd overall, thanks to his
first points score with 12th place at the previous round.
Championship points in the last two races,
including a 13th place at Donington last time
out, have shown Raffaele De Rosa (Team Lorini
Honda) the way forward as he now sits in 24th place in the points standings.
David Linortner (Team Honda PTR) is another rider
in the points scoring tally for Honda, but Imre
Toth (Racing Team Toth Honda), Eduard Blokhin
(Rivamoto Honda), Nacho Calero Perez (Honda PTR)
and Matt Davies (Team Honda PTR) have all yet to
score, such is the strength in depth of WSS competition in 2013.
HONDA RIDER COMMENTS:
Jonathan Rea (Pata Honda World Superbike Team)
"It took me a while to get over the
disappointment of Donington but I’ve thrown
myself into the TT on the Isle of Man. I’ve been
playing on trials bikes and watching the races
and Honda invited me to the Joey Dunlop memorial
dinner on Saturday. I usually look forward to the
weather in Portugal, but it’s been awesome on the
Isle of Man this week, where 17 degrees feels
like 25. I really love the Portimao circuit. It’s
one of the highlights of the season for me and
the undulations throw everything at the rider in
a proper test. When the bike’s been good this
year, it’s been really good, but unfortunately
the electronics have been a bit of a thorn in our
side and that was the case at Donington. I’m
looking forward to this weekend though, and
hoping that the guys will be on top of everything
to allow us to realise some of the bike’s potential."
Leon Haslam (Pata Honda World Superbike Team)
"I biggest thing is that the movement and bend of
my left knee has got a lot better since Donington
so we are working on the strength of my leg now.
Three or four weeks of not using the muscles
means that they go pretty quickly so I have been
working hard with my physio trying to get the
strength back. The lack of bend in my leg and the
strength of my muscles were the two things that
held me back from riding in the races at
Donington, but both of those things have been
improved. Portimao is a track that is very
demanding so it is going to be a big test. The
three tracks I have tried to come back for –
Donington, Portimao and Imola – are the three
hardest on the calendar in a physical sense so If
I can come back at any of them then I know I will
be fine for any of the up and coming races. My
knee hurt the whole weekend at Donington and all
the doctors have advised me to rest it. I had
probably been overworking it, trying to get fit
for my home race last time out. So now I am not
overdoing it and hopefully I can rest it in the
run up to Portugal. I can then go
session-by-session rather than try and do too much too soon.”
Lorenzo Zanetti (Pata Honda World Supersport Team)
"I am ready for the Portimao race and I have to
be confident and happy after the last two races
at Monza and Donington because we have taken a
good direction in the set-up of the bike. So I
will take a positive feeling to Portimao even
though it is not my favourite track. I will push
100% and try to get a good result because after
Portimao we arrive at another favourite track of
mine, Imola. Now I am in fourth place in the
championship so it will be necessary to aim for
top fives places in all the races. It is
important to work with the team to continue to
improve the bike’s performance as well because
the other bikes are also fast, but we have a good
potential with the Honda and I have a good team
around me. Because of this I am not feeling a lot
of pressure. The last two races have been held on
very different tracks, Monza and Donington, but
it went well at both of them. I think the base
set-up will be strong for all the other tracks from now on."
Michael van der Mark (Pata Honda World Supersport Team)
"My foot injury is getting better, but slowly, so
maybe I am doing too much with it. That said it
is not too bad. Portimao is a track I really like
and in the last two years in Superstock 600 I had
good results. After the disappointment of Monza
and Donington we need another good result and I
think we can do it now. We just want a normal
weekend and I hope that the team and I can work
together to earn many points. The package and the
base of the bike is really good, we just need to
find that last little part every time, which has
been proving difficult sometimes. If you look at
all the qualifying sessions we have a good race
pace but we need to find that little extra in
qualifying. If we lose Friday practice time to
weather conditions we lose a lot of track time we
really need, especially in my first WSS season.”
Jack Kennedy (Rivamoto Honda)
"I am busy with my preparations and training for
the next track at Portimao. I do know this track
because we had a test here at the beginning of
the year but it was mainly wet for two days. It
is a strange track really, big time, because the
hills on it are crazy! A super track though. It
is very physical round there so I am expecting a
tough race but I have been training extra hard to
overcome the arm pump I suffered at Donington. It
would be nice to have a dry Friday and not a wet
Friday for once. There have been a lot of wet
first days so far and that leaves us on the back
foot a bit compared to teams who have data from all the tracks last year."
Luca Marconi (PTR Honda)
"I took a standard Honda CBR600RR to Adria, a
short track near my home, to do some track
training in readiness for the Portuguese race
weekend. I made 120 laps on Monday and I feel
ready to race now. Portimao is like a motocross
track with asphalt; it is so up and down. I just
want to achieve a good result again after the
no-score at Donington. The team and I will do our best to achieve this."
Gabor Talmacsi (PRORACE Honda)
"I am planning a little bit of relaxation before
the race at Portimao because the place is very
nice but I will need all the kilometres I can get
at that track when I arrive there because I only
rode it for the first time last year. It is very
hard because it is so up and down. My goal this
time is to get into the top ten. I am ready for
this so why not? The most important thing about
this track is to know where you are because then
it is easy to prepare for the corners. If you do
not have the reference points worked out you will
be lost. It will be important to cycle around it,
run around it, walk around it a lot, to check all
these points for each corner. It is a very
exciting track and the only negative thing is
that the bike is always doing a wheelie so you
have to think about this to stop it doing it too much and losing you time.”