Ryuichi Kiyonari is looking forward to continuing the development of new suspension parts on his Ten Kate Honda Racing CBR1000RR Fireblade at this weekend’s (4-6 September) 11th round World Superbike championship event at Nurburgring in Germany.
The Japanese ace began using Ohlins suspension at the last round at Brno in the Czech Republic and enjoyed an improvement in his feeling on the bike in the second race there, despite finishing in 13th place.
Kiyonari has tasted the podium champagne on two occasions this season, both at Monza, and the double British Superbike champion is seeking to visit the rostrum again before the end of the current season.
He joins his fellow World Superbike competitors at the 5.13km Nurburgring circuit, which lies adjacent to the famous Nordschleife, part of the original track built in the 1920s in the Eifel mountains, around 70km south of Cologne. The series returned to Nurburgring last season for the first time since 1999, with Japan’s Noriyuki Haga taking a double win.
Ryuichi Kiyonari Speaks… (Championship position 11th, 119 points)
I’ve had a good holiday – lots of relaxing every day at home, but now I’m really looking forward to racing again. Nurburgring was not so good for me last year, but it was not an easy track for me to learn. I did learn a lot though and I think we can start the weekend in a better position. In race two at Brno, I felt a definite improvement in the bike and the new suspension. I know that the guys will work really hard to give me the same feeling at Nurburgring, even though there are some parts of the track which are very different to Brno. I know I need some good results in the last four races this year and, of course, I will try as hard as I can to achieve them.
Ronald ten Kate Speaks… (Team Manager)
It’s been a long break but we got the impression with Kiyo-san at Brno, that the feeling was slowly coming. During the time out, we have done quite a bit of work on the settings to try to continue the direction that we found at the last race, which was Kiyo’s first weekend fully with Ohlins suspension. We will continue the progress at Nurburgring this week and hopefully give him a bike that he feels comfortable with to push for a good result.
