Over the past two days, Ten Kate Racing made final preparations ahead of the the 2023 FIM Supersport World Championship during the official test at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in Australia. With Stefano Manzi and Jorge Navarro as new riders within the team, important steps were made to go into the new season in the best possible way.

Manzi ended the two days on the flowing Australian circuit with a 1’33.227 as the fastest lap time, which placed him second on the combined timesheet. The Italian was in the top two in every session, proving he has excellent pace.

Navarro finished the test in fifteenth place with a 1’34.797 and showed good race pace, even though he has not fully recovered from the serious injury he suffered at the Australian circuit last October. The Spaniard was mainly troubled by this while riding a qualifying lap, but the progress made is a reason for much optimism at Ten Kate Racing.

Stefano Manzi: “Things went quite well today. I am very happy with this test; we worked very well as a team. We tried something with the bike setting today and found something that I like. Today I was faster than yesterday, both on race pace as well as over one lap. Now we will analyse all the information we gathered over the last two days and prepare ourselves for Friday, when the first round of the new season starts. I can’t wait to be back riding again and want to say thanks to the team for their hard work.”

Jorge Navarro: “Today has been a positive day in terms of improving my feeling on the bike, as well as my race pace. I am still missing a bit of confidence when putting in a fast lap, but I think we are doing things in a correct way and step by step we are coming. Physically it was quite demanding today compared to yesterday, but at least we will have two days off to recover again and prepare ourselves for the first round of the year.”

Kervin Bos – Ten Kate Racing team manager: “The two days of testing at Phillip Island are over and I think we can look back on it with a good feeling. Both riders were able to ride for two days without any major problems and made good progress. Stefano confirmed his speed and potential for the race weekend whilst Jorge clearly showed that the progression of the last few days has continued, however he is still pretty limited in riding one fast lap due to his physical condition. Great strides have been made with the setup of the machine and the feeling with the YZF-R6: I think with both riders we are ready for the first race weekend of 2023.

We also had a successful start with the Yamaha Thailand Racing Team supported by Ten Kate Racing. The last two days have been trouble-free there too so we can also look back on that with a very satisfied feeling. Now it is time to race and we are all extremely looking forward to that!”

After two free practice sessions on Friday and a Superpole session on Saturday morning, the first World Supersport race of 2023 will start Saturday at 14:30 local time, 04:30 Central European Time. Race 2 on Sunday afternoon will also be run at 14:30 local time, 04:30 CET.