SECOND ROW FOR VAN DER MARK AT HOME IN ASSEN
Michael van der Mark will start tomorrow’s two fourth-round World Superbike races from the second row of the grid after setting the fifth-fastest time in today’s Superpole sessions at Assen in the Netherlands. The Dutch Pata Honda rider, riding in front of an enthusiastic home crowd in his rookie World Superbike year, fired his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP around the 4.542km Assen circuit in a time of 1m35.619s, 0.8s off the pole position time of British rider Tom Sykes. Van der Mark, 22, has impressed throughout practice and qualifying in his Assen World Superbike debut, finishing no lower than fifth in any of the four sessions heading into Superpole, and he is looking forward to tomorrow’s races.
Michael van der Mark (P5, 1m35.619s): “Today was really good and we tried a few little things in set-up this morning, trying to solve a couple of problems we had yesterday. We found a good solution and I was pretty quick in FP3 and then even faster in FP4. We were quite consistent, too, so I was very happy with that. In final qualifying of Superpole I think my lap could have been a little faster but I’m quite happy with P5. To be on the second row for my home round is a good position to start. Our race pace is OK, although we still need to find a couple of tenths, but I’m quite confident for the races tomorrow.”