Ten Kate Honda to run two, not three Superbike riders in 2010

Ten Kate Honda have revealed that they are likely to run two Superbike riders in 2010 instead of three in 2009. The Dutch squad expanded their highly successful team in 2009 to three riders with WSB rookie Jonathan Rea joining Carlos Checa and Ryuichi Kiyonari.

Rea’s impressive performance to date including a win at Misano and three further podiums have backed up Ten Kate’s faith in the young Brit, but whilst Rea’s place in the Dutch team is secure the fate of his two WSB and two World Supersport team-mates is less so.

Speaking to MCN, Team boss Ronald Ten Kate said:
““Right now we have one rider in the ‘green zone’ which is Jonathan and the rest of the riders are in the ‘open zone’ and their contracts are open.

“In Supersport we would like to keep Kenan Sofuoglu and Andrew Pitt to give them a full year with decent material underneath them.

“We’ve started speaking about next year and we had a meetings with Honda Europe to discuss the situation. Like everything nowadays the decision is budget related so we could have two Supersport and two Superbike. There is also the issue of efficiency with our resources spread over three riders. I personally don’t believe this is the real issue but for sure running two riders instead of three will make life easier.”