It wasn’t exactly a surprise as the rumor that Hiroshi Aoyama would be another MotoGP refugee joining the World Superbike championship in 2012 has been floating around lately, and today Honda Motor Europe and Ten Kate Racing have officially confirmed the former 250cc World champion has signed with them.

The 29-year old Aoyama has always been a Honda faithful, having ridden for the Japanese manufacturer all his career and he’ll be joining Jonathan Rea in the Honda WSBK team next season. The soon-to-be ex Gresini rider is currently 10th in the MotoGP standings and today at Phillip Island qualified 12th after a crash.

Hiroshi Aoyama:

I have raced in MotoGP for the last couple of years and it has really been a great experience for me. I really want to thank Fausto Gresini and all the staff and technicians of Team San Carlo Honda Gresini for this extraordinary period in my career. Now I have the opportunity to go to World Superbike with Honda and Ten Kate Racing and I’m very excited about this new challenge. I don’t know very much about Superbike but I really hope to make a good job together with my new team.

Continue reading: Hiroshi Aoyama joins World Superbikes with Ten Kate Racing

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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 Superbike

Race 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

Continue reading: IDM Superbike: Max Neukirchner Wins Race 1 and takes 3rd in Race 2 at Assen

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In race 1 at Kyalami Jonathan Rea gave fans some excitement with his double outside overtaking pass on James Toseland and Leon Camier, but it was race 2 that the Ulsterman showed off his racing skills, thrilling audiences worldwide only to be denied victory by hard charging Leon Haslam on the penultimate lap.

Here’s a slightly disappointed Rea at the parc ferme talking about the race, with some behind the scene footage before going to the podium to take his second place trophy and at the post race conference.

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The second race at Misano was under sunny skies and on a completely dry track, which saw Jonathan Rea dogfight with Xerox Ducati riders Noriyuki Haga and Michel Fabrizio from start to finish and beat Fabrizio to the checkered flag by 0.063 of a second.

It was Noriyuki Haga that took off from sixth on the grid and was first at turn 1, with Rea in hot pursuit and Fabrizio, Smrz, Checa and Byrnes trailing behind.

Ben Spies, winner of race 1, encountered technical problems and started slipping behind and pulled wide looking at the back of his Yamaha R1. Dropping to the back of the field, and finding a solution to his problems, began lapping with times almost equal to those leading, but had his work cut out for after having dropped to 17th place managed to finish 9th, but was extremely frustrated and angry, which we all saw when crossing the finish line, he punched his Yamaha on the tank.

On lap 4 Rea made his move on Haga, with Fabrizio fastly closing in on his team mate, but it was down to third on lap 6 after Fabrizio made his move. The two team mates gave an exciting example of close passing and on the 12th lap that Japanese rider set his fastest lap with a 1.37”135.

Continue reading: WSBK Misano Race 2 - Jonathan Rea takes his 1st Win

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