This weekend, the second round of the FIM Supersport World Championship will be held at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. After the season opener on the other side of the world in Australia, the WorldSBK paddock returns to Europe to start its European tour.

Despite a podium finish in Race 1, the first race weekend of 2024 left Pata Yamaha Ten Kate Racing with mixed feelings. Therefore the Nieuwleusen-based race team is extra keen to come back strong this weekend and show where it belongs.

After the riders and teams had to deal with extremely high grip levels at Phillip Island, things will be quite different this weekend at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. The 4.6-kilometre circuit, which has eight right turns and six left, is widely known as a low-grip track.

Both the riders and Pata Yamaha Ten Kate Racing are looking forward to returning to the famous circuit in Catalonia. Last year, Stefano Manzi stood on the podium and Glenn van Straalen finished in the top five twice.

Stefano Manzi: “We are back in ‘race week mode’ and I cannot wait for Friday, to be back working with the team and jump on the bike again. Barcelona was a good track for us last year so I hope it will be similar this year. I want to be able to show our full potential this weekend, which is something we couldn’t do in Australia. I will do my very best to achieve great results this weekend.”

Glenn van Straalen: “I am looking forward to going to Barcelona. It’s a good circuit for me, last year I got good results there. I think we can show our speed there which we missed a bit in Australia. I’m going there with confidence and am really looking forward to getting back on the Yamaha YZF-R6 this weekend.

Kervin Bos – Pata Yamaha Ten Kate Racing team manager: “Next weekend marks the second race weekend of the season. We go to Barcelona again, which is a circuit that suits us well. The team likes coming there and the YZF-R6 works well there. We have everything on track and after Australia we were able to improve some small details on the overall package. We hope we can run a ‘normal’ weekend now, with good weather forecasts all the ingredients seem to be there to make it something nice.”

This weekend, the regular timetable will be followed in Barcelona. In 2024 that means a single free practice session on Friday morning followed by the Superpole session at 16:00 in the afternoon. After a warm-up session on Saturday morning, Race 1 will be run in the afternoon at 15:15, the same goes for Sunday with a warm-up session in the morning and Race 2 at 15:15.