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Team Honda Ten Kate lined up on the Magny-Cours grid today with the intention of making up for Hayden's retirement in race 1 yesterday, by confirming the great second place scored by Van Der Mark, between winner Davies and Tom Sykes in third.
In totally dry conditions, the Honda CBR1000 Fireblades was at something of a disadvantage with respect to Ducati and Kawasaki. In fact Van Der Mark's fifth place finish after a long battle with Camier on the MV, and ninth for Nicky Hayden, finishing up between Guintoli on the Yamaha and Forés with the privateer Ducati, highlighted the gap that still exits between them and the frontrunners.
The Dutchman, 2014 Supersport world champion with CBR600, offers his take on the race: “The settings we tried in warm up didn’t really work out so we used the ones from FP2, the only long session I had this weekend,” said van der Mark. “My start and first lap were great; I had a consistent pace, just a little bit slower than I’d hoped. When I got in front of Camier I tried to pull away but it was not possible and when he passed me, I simply couldn’t stay with him. In the end, fifth is not a bad result. We scored some more important points and now we have a solid fourth place in the Championship in our hands. Hopefully, in two weeks’ time at Jerez we will be able to challenge for the podium again.”
Not exactly a stand-out weekend for Nicky Hayden. Having been forced to retire from yesterday's race, today the American wanted more, perhaps even a chance to fight for the podium but instead the “Kentucky Kid” has to settle for ninth position, a long way from where he wants to be: “It hasn’t been the smoothest of weekends for us - commented Hayden - I got a good start but lost some places at turn four, which I wasn’t able to get back. I had a little problem with engine braking and towards the end I picked up some vibration that hurt me in the battle for sixth, but the reality is that I got behind on Friday morning;
In effect, the unpredictable weather conditions at Magny-Cours limited and conditioned Hayden's work on the Honda CBR: “it would have been nice to do some laps in the dry yesterday in race one, but that didn’t happen. In the end, it was a combination of things and I was never able to catch up. If I really want to find a positive, today I set my fastest laps of the weekend, but that’s clearly not enough. It’s never nice to end the weekend with this feeling, but it is what it is. Now it’s time to look forward to Jerez, a track I really like.”
