WSBK Ten Kate rider Max Neukirchner got a big confidence boost this weekend during the German IDM Superbike championship at Assen on Sunday.
The German rider who got a wild card ride under the Ten Kate Racing Products – the customer racing division of the World Superbike championship’s Hannspree Ten Kate Honda team – rode a Honda CBR 1000RR (IDM has different specs than WSBK) on Dunlop tires.
Neukirchner had qualified in third position on Saturday, just two tenths of a second behind pole man BMW Alpha Technik/Van Zon rider Barry Veneman and in race 1 passed Veneman after just three laps and took the win with a comfortable 7 second lead ahead of Veneman and Martin Bauer and his KTM RC8R SuperbikeRace two was initially delayed and when it started Karl Muggeridge, who currently leads the champship, had a jump start and received a 20 second penalty while Barry Veneman and Max Neukirchner were battling it out, on the fourth lap heavy rain hit the Dutch circuit and the race was red flagged.
The race was shortened from 17 laps to 10 and in the re-start Barry Veneman got the lead and carried it to the chequered flag, while Matej Smrz (brother of Jakub) took second and Max Neukirchner took the third spot on the podium Here’s what Neukirchner had to say:“The first race was brilliant and I felt so happy to be back on the podium – especially on the top step.
Qualifying on Saturday was quite difficult because the Dunlop qualifiers behaved a little differently to the Pirellis that I am more accustomed to.
However, the front row was OK and we knew that our race pace was very strong.
In race one I was able to pass Veneman quite early and just kept pushing throughout the race.
In the end it was a comfortable victory.
It felt fantastic to beat the other guys who have been racing with their teams and against each other all season.
Race two was a little chaotic but third place and another podium was good for me.
The weekend was a great personal motivation for my home race in Germany in two weeks, and we have another test at Assen before we go.
I hope we can continue the good progress we made at Silverstone in the last SBK race and I’m sure that we can start at Nurburgring with a good feeling.
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