Steady opening for Pata Honda Supersport team

Michael van der Mark finished fifth in today’s opening qualifying session for the third round World Supersport championship race at Assen in The Netherlands.

In cold, wet and thoroughly miserable conditions at the 4.542km circuit, both Pata Honda riders sat out most of this morning’s free practice session, completing only three laps between them on their CBR600RR machines.

At his home race, Dutch flyer van der Mark, who currently sits in second place in the championship standings, crashed unhurt early in this afternoon’s qualifying session but was able to rejoin after his crew had repaired his bike.

Michael van der Mark – P5, 2m04.944s

Yes, it was a little bit difficult today! It was wet, the track was too cold and we missed the grip. This morning was difficult because the track was drying and we didn’t want to destroy some tyres because in these conditions we have nothing to gain, but at the end I did some laps to check if the bike was OK. The qualifying session was completely wet and I went out with a good feeling but after 10 minutes I entered a corner and lost the rear because there was no grip so I had a little crash. The guys fixed the bike pretty fast and when I went out I had a good feeling again but it was really difficult. It was too cold today and there was not enough grip. But in the end we are in P5 and I think we have to be quite happy about this.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

In the morning we just did a few laps because it was raining. It continued this afternoon but as it was qualifying we went out and did some more laps to get a feeling and a rhythm for the wet. Michael had a small crash but he was unhurt and back on track with 20 minutes left. He was steadily improving and ended up fifth but the gap is very small so it was a good job. Lorenzo managed to get eleventh and considering he is new to the bike here and to these conditions it was a pretty good.

2013 World Supersport championship, round three – TT Circuit Assen, Netherlands

First qualifying results:

1 Alessandro Antonelli (ITA) Kawasaki 2m04.455s

2 Christian Iddon (GBR) MV Agusta 2m04.540s

3 Matthieu Scholtz (RSA) Suzuki 2m04.562s

4 Kenan Sofuoglu (TUR) Kawasaki 2m04.818s

5 Michael van der Mark (NED) Pata Honda 2m04.944s

11 Lorenzo Zanetti (ITA) Pata Honda 2m06.575s