TT Circuit Assen, Netherlands
The FIM Superbike World Championship is back in action this weekend at the TT Circuit Assen, the home track for the Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team. Round four of the 2017 season – the second one on European soil – will be a special one for the Dutch squad, with Nicky Hayden and Stefan Bradl ready to battle around the 4.542km technical track on board their Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP2 machines.
Last year, Hayden took the first podium of his World Superbike career at Assen, a third place in race one from tenth position on the grid. This is not the only fond memory of Assen for Nicky, who came out victorious in 2006 after a thrilling finale in that year’s MotoGP race and was third at the chequered flag the following season.
Stefan Bradl has had a fair amount of success in qualifying at the Dutch venue, with one pole position in Moto2 and three front-row starts (two in MotoGP and one in 125cc). The German’s best race result so far at Assen, however, is a pair of sixth places, one in 2009 (125cc) and the other in 2013 (MotoGP on a Honda).
The schedule for the Assen round will follow the traditional European timetable, with the two races set to get underway at 1pm CEST (GMT +2) on Saturday and Sunday.
Nicky Hayden 69
I look forward to racing at Assen. It’s a track with a lot of history and it’s the home circuit for the team so, after the difficulties we experienced in Aragón almost a month ago, we’ll try to have a bit more fun here. It’s a very fast and flowing track and a lot comes down to the last chicane, where a lot of races are decided. I can’t wait to get on track and see where we’re at. As usual at this time of the year, the weather plays a key role in the weekend: looking at the forecast it seems like it’ll be very variable, so we have to take advantage of every condition and be ready for anything. Let’s see what we can do: hopefully we’ll be able to secure some results we can be happy about.
Stefan Bradl 6
I’m looking forward to Assen. It’s going to be an important race not only for the team, but also for us riders because it’s a new round and our goal is to do better than the last one. It’s good to get back on the bike; I hope the weather is not going to be too unkind to us, in order to make the most of our time on track and see how the bike performs at this track, which is quite different to the ones we have already raced on this year. Hopefully, we can make a step forward so we’ll see how it goes
Pieter Breddels
We are ready for Assen, a track where we’ve done well in the past and that hopefully will be kind to us even this time around. We did some testing between Aragón and here and we are taking to Assen some of the updates we tried. It looks like the weather is going to be a factor this weekend but that will not be a surprise. In any case, our hope is that it’ll be a dry weekend. I reckon a top-six result is within our range with both Nicky and Stefan, so we’ll do our best to make that happen
