Pirelli noters from Assen

Article from http://www.worldsbk.com/en/news/5-news/7220-pirelli-notes-from-assen.html

Giorgio Barbier, Racing Director Pirelli Moto, sums up the third round of the 2011 Superbike World Championship from the point of view of the championship's one-make tyre supplier.

"Assen is a fantastically flowing circuit with smooth asphalt for which Pirelli made available 4 front and 4 rear Diablo Superbike tyres to the SBK class, including both Soft and Medium options for cold and warmer conditions; an overall allotment of 4,604 tyres including those to support the first round of the Superstock classes. The focuses at this spring race were durability and stability rather than pure performance, offered through an increased mechanical grip that requires slightly more set-up time. Throughout practice and qualifying, temperatures never exceeded 20°C on the asphalt whilst on race day we saw nearly 30°C, making tyre choice very critical. In Race 1 Sykes (Kawasaki), Xaus (Honda) and Guintoli (Ducati) opted for the Soft (A) rear tyre for their bike set-up, despite having had some trouble managing tyre wear, unlike Fabrizio (Suzuki), whose team's bike set-up was focused on the Soft and he brought home a 5th and 7th place. It was a great performance by Rea (Honda) on the Soft (SC1) front and Medium rear at his team's home track, adding to his double-win here last year. In Race 2 a seven seconds faster measured race time (35'38.693) vs. 2010, where Checa (Ducati) demonstrated an ideal usage of the Soft (A) rear tyre he changed to for the second race. In Supersport the race saw a few rider errors and red flags, leaving Scassa (Yamaha) unable to finish but it gave a chance to Parkes (Kawasaki), who switched to the Soft (SC1) rear after the red flag to find podium performance, behind Davies (Yamaha) and Foret (Honda). In Superstock 600 the first race of the season left a new track record of 1'40.941, one second faster, set by new Australian entrant Metcher (Yamaha) on Diablo Supercorsa tyres available to our everyday dealer network."