The third round of the Superbike World Championship got underway today at the TT Circuit Assen in The Netherlands. After a month’s break, Kawasaki Puccetti Racing is now able to verify the work it has been doing on Tom Sykes’ bike back at base in Reggio Emilia. The Englishman was on track for this morning’s first practice, which took place in cool and windy conditions, and placed twentieth with a fastest time of 1’37”169.
The second session ran this afternoon in slightly warmer temperatures. Sykes worked with the team’s technicians to adapt his Ninja to the fast Dutch circuit, improving on his earlier time and setting a best of 1’36”547.
Tomorrow morning Tom will be back out for the final free practice and Superpole, before lining up for the first race of this third championship round.
TT Circuit – Assen – The Netherlands
Superbike World Championship
Combined free practice results: 1) Bautista (Ducati) – 2) Lowes (Kawasaki) – 3) Rea (Kawasaki) – 4) Aegerter (Yamaha) – 5) Gardner (Yamaha) ……. 22) Sykes (Kawasaki)
Tom Sykes
“I’m happy to be back at Assen, a track I really like. It’s been a challenging but very useful day. We worked a lot on the setting of our bike in preparation for the races and have identified some areas in which we still need to improve. We hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow, but if it does we’ll just have to try and adapt our Ninja to the conditions.”
