Pata Honda rider Kyle Smith is keen to get back to podium ways this weekend in the eighth round World Supersport championship encounter at Misano World Circuit in Italy.

The 23-year-old British rider took his Honda CBR600RR to a sixth place finish last time out at Portimao in Portugal, but Smith needed a solid points result to get his championship back on track after crashing out of the previous two races in Italy and the UK.

He has already put his CBR machine on the podium twice this season and he has been given a confidence boost ahead of this weekend’s race at the 4.226km Misano circuit with news that Pirelli will return a favoured front tyre to its selection.

Smith has struggled with a lack of front-end feeling in recent weeks and hopes that the slightly different construction of Pirelli’s SC2 tyre and a new track surface at Misano will improve his lap times.

Kyle SmithIt would be really good to get back on the podium this weekend. Sixth place at Portimao was OK after crashes in the two races before, but I still struggled a little with bike set-up all weekend. It wasn’t the best result, but I took it relatively gentle because I really didn’t want to crash and I managed to get some valuable points. We’ll see how this weekend unfolds but I can’t wait to get started. There’s new tarmac here so we’ll see how it goes but I’m really looking forward to it.

Pieter Breddels- technical co-ordinatorThe result at Portimao was quite good for Kyle and his team because there were too many DNFs before that. We have good hopes that we can do a little better here, especially knowing that Pirelli will bring a different front tyre that will hopefully suit Kyle and the CBR a bit more. We have tried a number of changes with the set-up but we’ve still been having some front-end issues. Hopefully this weekend we can see the old Kyle that started the season so strongly, so we’re really looking forward to Friday.