INTERVIEW
HONDA RACING WORLDSBK BOSS RONALD TEN KATE
P90
the three and four.
That's the same system the Ka-
wasakis use, isn't it?
Yeah, but they have the double
throttle bodies. They don't have the
split system anymore, but they have
two throttle valves. Over winter when
we switched it off because of the new
rule, it looked like we couldn't do the
split system anymore and we had to
use the standard Ride-By-Wire throttle
system on the CBR. We switched it
up last year and the riders liked it. We
were surprised.
Have there been any nuances
with the Ride-By-Wire system?
It was very cool over winter testing.
We had a period where we were not
testing because we were waiting for
the new bike to come. We had a lot of
rain and extremely cold conditions in
Europe. Then when we took it to Phillip
Island, round one, where conditions
were very hot, all of a sudden, not
having the split throttle was giving more
problems than ever anticipated for us.
So, we're trying now to cure that with
settings and strategies on the elec-
tronic system, by testing in season.
We're only allowed eight days of testing
in total.
What are your feelings of the talk
of rule changes for next season?
What would you like to see?
I want to see the rules first before
I have an opinion! I'm not against a
change, because what racing should
be about is all the brands racing should
have an opportunity to be on the po-
dium and winning. Right now, the field
(Above) Ronald
believes the near
electronic-free
environment
of the British
Superbike
Championship is
a bridge too far
for WorldSBK.
(Opposite)
Ronald ecstatic
at Laguna Seca
after Chris
Vermeulen takes
a double win for
Ten Kate Honca,
circa 2004.
