Team Pata Honda Suffers 2 Top-10s and 2 DNFs at Motorland Aragon World Superbike Round

Motorland Aragon - Spain    12.04.2015                 Tough day in the office for Pata Honda duo The third-round of the World Superbike championship this weekend has been a challenging outing for Michael van der Mark and Sylvain Guintoli at Aragon, Spain.   Over the weekend the team strived to improve and find the optimum setting for the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP around the 5.077km circuit.   In the first of two 18-lap races, van der Mark was forced to retire due to a small technical problem on the tenth lap. The second race saw the SBK rookie make a gallant attack moving up from his starting grid position in 11th to sixth place, but on the last lap had to settle with eighth.   Meanwhile van der Mark’s teammate Sylvain Guintoli finished race one within the top-ten taking ninth place after making his way forward from his qualifying position in 14th. During the second installment he had made his way up to tenth but crashed out of the running on the sixth lap after loosing the front.   The team will now take and analyse all the data collected from each session this weekend in preparation for its home race at Assen, the Netherlands next weekend 17-19 April.  Michael van der Mark  - DNF     8th I felt quite confident going into race one today, but I knew I had some work to do starting from 11th. My lap times were getting better and better and I was improving on each lap, but unfortunately we had a small technical problem, which meant I had to finish the race early. Race two was better, I managed to get up to speed quickly and move further forward towards the front. I’m happy to leave here with some points and we now have some work to do before Assen next weekend, where I hope we have some better results.  Sylvain Guintoli  - 9th     DNF This weekend we have been working hard to find the right settings for the Fireblade around this circuit, which hasn’t been easy. I think in race two I could have challenged for sixth position but I got a little hungry and lost the front, which resulted in me crashing out unfortunately. It’s not normally something that happens to me, but sometimes it does and you have to learn from it. The guys have collected a lot of data from this round and will be working towards finding solutions for Michael and myself to get the results we all want.  Pieter Breddels Aragon has been a bit of a challenge for us as we have tried to find the optimum setting for the CBR1000RR and we knew that both races would be difficult. In race one Sylvain got off to a good start immediately going into the top-ten and finished the race ninth. Michael recovered his start well and was building good momentum and producing lap times that could match the guys in front of him. Unfortunately after ten-laps he had a small technical issue with the bike, which forced him out of the race. In race two Sylvain had a crash after loosing the front, which ended his weekend. For Michael it was a lot better, he fought all throughout the race to get into sixth position but on the very last lap had to settle for eighth. Both riders rode well all weekend but there is a gap at the front, which we now have to go back and an alyse and think how we can close this, and get closer to the action.  Weather Sunny Intervals Air 12°C Track 18°C Humidity 75%   Race 1 Results   1   Jonathan Rea 33m.36.937s GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 2   Chaz Davies +0.051s GBR DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team 3   Tom Sykes +4.977s GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 4   Leon Haslam +15.088s GBR APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils 5   Jordi Torres +15.290s ESP APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils 6   Xavi Fores +16.655s ESP DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team 7   Nicolas Terol +17.365s ESP DUCATI Althea Racing 8   Leandro Mercado +25.527s ARG DUCATI BARNI Racing Team 9   Sylvain Guintoli +31.464s FRA HONDA Pata Honda World Superbike Team 10   Leon Camier +43.013s GBR MV MV Agusta Reparto Corse Weather Sunny Air 18°C Track 32°C Humidity 48%   Race 2 Results   1   Chaz Davies 33m34.699s GBR DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team 2   Jonathan Rea +3.190s GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 3   Leon Haslam +3.712s GBR APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils 4   Jordi Torres +14.216s ESP APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils 5   Xavi Fores +20.524s ESP DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team 6   David Salom +25.878s ESP KAWASAKI Team Pedercini 7   Leandro Mercado +25.939s ARG DUCATI BARNI Racing Team 8   Michael van der Mark +26.075s NED HONDA Pata Honda World Superbike Team 9   Ayrton Badovini +27.253s ITA BMW JR Racing Team 10   Nicolas Terol +28.666s ESP DUCATI Althea Racing   Championship Standings   1   Jonathan Rea 140 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 2   Leon Haslam 114 pts GBR APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils 3   Chaz Davies 83 pts GBR DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team 4   Tom Sykes 66 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 5   Jordi Torres 63 pts ESP APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils 6   Sylvain Guintoli 48 pts FRA HONDA Pata Honda World Superbike Team 7   Nicolas Terol 41 pts ESP DUCATI Althea Racing 8   Matteo Baiocco 39 pts ITA DUCATI Althea Racing 9   Leandro Mercado 38 pts ARG DUCATI BARNI Racing Team 10   Alex Lowes 34 pts GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki 11   Michael van der Mark 28 pts NED HONDA Pata Honda World Superbike Team   Copyright-free images for editorial use only © 2015 Pata Honda.