After another long break, the fifth round of the FIM Supersport World Championship will be held at Donington Park this weekend. It is the first of two rounds in a row in which Stefano Manzi will hope to reduce his gap to his competitors as Glenn van Straalen will be looking to make some steps forward.

After the Italian round in sunny and warm Misano, the fifth round of the season will be held at Donington Park after a three-week break. As is often the case at the English circuit, weather forecasts indicate that rain will fall over the weekend and it will not be particularly warm.

After achieving his fifth podium finish of the season in the first race at his home circuit, Stefano Manzi was unable to finish inside the top three in the second race. The Italian currently has a still certainly not insurmountable 22 points gap on World Championship leader Adrián Huertas so the aim is to reduce this at Donington Park. A year ago at the English circuit, the Italian finished on the podium in Race 1 and fifth in Race 2 despite a minor slip-off.

After his sensational win in Assen, the race weekend in Misano proved to be a lot trickier for Glenn van Straalen. The Dutchman scored points in both races but was unable to join the top riders in the World Supersport championship in those races. The target for the next two consecutive rounds is to make further steps forward and become a regular in the top ten.

Stefano Manzi: “Finally we are going racing again after another long break. This time we get two rounds in a row so that will be very nice. Donington Park is a good track for us, last year I was quite strong and I like riding there. I will surely enjoy riding there and I hope I can be fast again this year.”

Glenn van Straalen: “I am looking forward to go racing at Donington Park again this weekend. There always are great races at that circuit, especially the first part is very fast and that makes it nice to race there. During the test in Cremona we made progress which makes me confident going into this race weekend.”

Kervin Bos – Pata Yamaha Ten Kate Racing team manager: “We are ready to restart the action. We are now entering an important period of the season as we have a lot of races in a short period, scoring points will be crucial. Glenn and Stefano are in good shape after the test in Cremona where we were able to do a lot of mileage, as well as testing stuff. The whole team is looking forward to get going again.”

The race weekend at Donington Park starts with free practice on Friday morning after which the Superpole session will be run in the afternoon at 16:00 local time, 17:00 Central European time. After a warm-up session on Saturday morning, Race 1 kicks off at 15:15 local time (16:15 CET) in the afternoon. The same goes for Sunday with a warm-up session in the morning and Race 2 at 15:15 local time (16:15 CET).