Just a few days after an emotional and unexpected victory at Imola in Italy last Sunday, the Castrol Honda team heads to Magny-Cours in France for this weekend’s (1-2 October) twelfth round of the 2011 World Superbike championship.
Jonathan Rea took victory in race one at Imola, marking not only his return to fitness after a three-month mid-season injury layoff, but also a step forward in the development of the Castrol Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade on which the team is testing a new electronics package, including ride-by-wire technology.
Concentrating the development predominantly on corner entry, Rea’s team-mate Ruben Xaus also made progress with the new package and was able to battle on competitive lap times in race two at Imola.
However, lying around 300km south of the French capital, the 4.411km Magny-Cours circuit presents the Castrol Honda team and its two riders with a new set of issues this weekend.
Jonathan Rea has tasted podium champagne at Magny-Cours in the past, finishing third in race two in his debut SBK season of 2009, but the 24-year-old from Northern Ireland was forced to miss last year’s races through a wrist injury sustained at Imola. Xaus, meanwhile, enjoyed two visits to the Magny-Cours podium, including the top step, in 2003.
Jonathan ReaI’m really looking forward to getting back on the bike again at Magny-Cours this weekend as I’m still buzzing from the win in Imola last Sunday. It’ll be good to continue the progress that we made in Italy but we’re under no illusions about it being easy. The Magny-Cours circuit has different characteristics, surface and grip levels to Imola, so we’ll be starting from scratch again. But it would certainly be nice to get back on the podium to make up for the disappointment we had in race two last weekend. The win in Imola just underlined every thing I love about riding the bike – especially winning on it.
Ruben XausImola was quite a difficult weekend because apart from anything, it was my first race on the bike since the crash at Brno in July. On top of that we had a new electronics package to develop and we made some progress there. We made some changes for the second race and it really made a difference to the way I could ride. I want to continue this progress this weekend at Magny-Cours but it won’t be easy because the track is different. But I will work as hard as I can with the team to get some good results.
Ronald ten Kate – team managerLast weekend’s results were a little unexpected but very welcome even so. This week we have to keep up the momentum but also keep a realistic view of things because it will be very hard to dial in the CBR and the new electronics package into Magny-Cours. However, the shakedown of the new system in Imola has given us all a renewed confidence and motivation and we’ll do whatever we have to in order to be competitive this weekend at Magny-Cours, where we have enjoyed some quite good results in the past.
2011 World Superbike Championship, round 12, Magny-Cours, France – schedule (local times):
Friday 30 September11.30 Free practice (60 min)15.30 Qualifying practice (60 min)
Saturday 1 October10.45 Qualifying practice (45 min)13.45 Free practice (45 min)15.00 Superpole 1 (14 min)15.21 Superpole 2 (12 min)15.40 Superpole 3 (10 min)
Sunday 2 October09.20 Warm-up (15 min)12.00 Race 1 (23 laps – 101.453km)15.30 Race 2 (23 laps – 101.453km)
