Newsletter

The official race report service of Kawasaki Racing Team.

21 april 2018

Morais Top Kawasaki Qualifier At Assen

Sheridan Morais (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) will start Sunday’s 18-lap WorldSSP race at Assen from the third row of the grid, having ended Superpole 2 in ninth place. Hikari Okubo (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) was 12th in Superpole and will be on the fourth row at the start of the fourth race of the 2018 season.

Assen has witnessed unseasonably warm air temperatures since the start of the weekend on Friday morning, allowing Hikari and Sheridan to work well with their technical crews as they look for their optimum race settings.
 
Sheridan, who was the top Kawasaki rider after Superpole qualifying, is still looking for one lap pace in what is only his second race for the team, but he is confident he has a good base set-up to take on 18 fast laps on Sunday.
 
Okubo was looking to be on one of the front two rows after today but he still aims to finish inside the top six on raceday, as he takes part in his fourth race for his Kawasaki Puccetti team.
 
Hikari Okubo, stated: “In Superpole my final position was 12th so I am not happy because my target was a top six grid position. Now I am on the fourth row but we had two small problems in Superpole so I lost a lot of time. But it is OK, because I made big work to change the front suspension settings and it is coming good. I will try another setting change tomorrow and think about how it will be in the race. The race needs consistency, not just one good lap. I will be trying to finish inside the top six on Sunday.”
 
Sheridan Morais, stated: “Again a good day for race set-up and doing a lot of laps, just like we did on Friday. Not so strong for one lap and for Superpole, but we were still only half a second off being on the front row. We are quite close and the confident part is that we can do a lot of laps like this. So I think we are strong for the race and I am really appreciative of my team and my bike.”
 
Local rider and ESS competitor Rob Hartog (Team Hartog Against Cancer) used the impetus of his Dutch fan base to go 11th in Superpole 2, to be the leading ESS rider on show. Another Dutch rider, Wayne Tessels (Chromeburner Wayne’s Racingteam MTM) was 18th on the grid.
 
Michael Canducci (Team GoEleven Kawasaki) was 21st in qualifying, Nacho Calero (Orelac Racing VerdNatura Kawasaki) 23rd, Peter Sebestyen (SSP Hungary Team) 25th and Lachlan Epis (Team GoEleven Kawasaki) 27th. After his crash in Friday top competitor Anthony West (EAB antwest Racing Kawasaki) was ruled out of further action after breaking his wrist.