This press release from Team Ten Kate Honda reveals the benefit of stand-alone test sessions for well-funded teams. Which may also explain why AMA Superbike teams have been testing at Willow Springs this week.

The press release follows:

Ten Kate Honda reap the benefits of a month’s hard work

While the Supersport circus took a month off from racing Team Ten Kate Honda stayed hard at work, developing the bikes, testing both on the bench (dyno) and at the track. The results are plain to see today as both Fabien Foret and Pere Riba have made it into the top three in first qualifying.

“This is the result of all our hard work in testing,” commented Team Manager Ronald ten Kate. “We are already 95% sorted due to testing here twice already in the past month. Now we are trying to find that last 5% to make it perfect.”

Fabien Foret was happy to have qualified in provisional second. “It always seems that when I am first on Friday I go backwards for the rest of the weekend, but I’ll be fighting for that pole position in tomorrow’s session,” said the Frenchman, who along with his teammate Pere Riba has already signed to ride for the team for next year.

“I’m happier now it’s dry,” said Foret after the dry qualifying session. “I think I can go another half-a-second faster on Saturday as the bike wasn’t set up perfectly. But we’ll have the settings worked out for the morning.”

Pere Riba was also happy with his qualifying time, saying “Testing has paid off, we have made a good start today and we can do more tomorrow.” He was also very pleased to sign again to race with Ten Kate Honda for the 2002 World Supersport Championship. “I am happy to ride for such a professional team again next year.”

The team also entered their former Superstock rider, Kyro Verstraeten, in the Supersport competition. “We are taking it step by step with Kyro,” said Ronald ten Kate, “we don’t want to rush things. But already he is getting on the pace and we are happy with his progress.”

The entire team are full of confidence for the rest of the weekend, ready to build on the strong platform that there efforts in testing have given the team.