Ten Kate Honda's Gino Rea made his Dutch Superbike debut at the weekend riding with the Duntep team in order to prepare for his European Superstock 600 meeting at Assen.

Rea qualified fifth on his first outing on a Superbike and started well in each of the two races, and was battling for race wins but crashed out in both. However the weekend and the test days on Thursday and Friday, were used to gain track time and also time on his Ten Kate WSB Superstock 600 bike (during the test days) prior to the WSB round at Assen in two weeks' time.
 
"It was a bit of a disaster but there were many positives to take from it. After battling for second in the first race I lost the front going into the third corner," said the youngster.

"After two years of road racing in 600s, it is the first time I've ever crashed in a dry race, but the positives from that race was I did a 1m 41.7s which was only 0.2 off the best time over the whole weekend from Shouten, and he was using Dunlops.

"So for the second race we made a slight change to the front, and I was battling for the lead with Gareth Jones. We had a gap on Maxime Berger and the rest of the pack. I had more pace than Gareth so I was pretty relaxed waiting for the end of the race.

"Then unexpectedly, I went down in the exact same spot as before. I'm really gutted as I could have come away with two podiums but that's racing. I've enjoyed riding the 1000 and adapted well to it.

"Andy Stone has been helping me with set up over the weekend and there is a chance he will be coming to Spa this weekend to work with me and the Duntep team on a second Dutch Superbike race. I'm looking forward to learning a new track, hopefully I can repay the team with a podium they deserve."