Brno  – Tyre choice made the ninth round of the 2010 World Superbike Championship at the Czech track of Brno difficult for Althea Racing .

Carlos Checa managed a top ten finish in race one. The Spaniard, starting from the second row thanks to the eighth fastest time set during qualifying,  finished the morning’s race in ninth position while in the afternoon he just missed out on the top five, having to settle for sixth.

“Yesterday, in both the qualifying and free practice sessions, we had a great level of grip while today, with the same tyre, we had more problems”, said Carlos. “This morning we tried to adapt the bike to the situation but during the race it was sliding around a lot. I tried to push to take as many championship points as possible but now my head is already focused on Silverstone, a great track, rich in history, on which we will try to race to the front.”

Shane Byrne fulfilled his initial objective, made on arrival at the track, which was to finish in the top ten. Having  finished race one in twelfth position, “Shakey”  improved in the second of the day’s races with a ninth place.

“In race one we didn’t have much grip and this conditioned my result”, said Shane. “In the second race, on the other hand, I was able to improve quite a lot, lapping more than half a second faster than I did in race one, in a race in which I think everyone had trouble making fast lap times. Now I’m banking on getting fully fit so I can be totally prepared for Silverstone. No-one has ridden on the new track yet and this could be an interesting factor as far as the races are concerned.”

“Unfortunately in this heat the choice of tyre becomes a lottery and for us it turned out to be a difficult weekend”, commented Genesio Bevilacqua, General Manager of Althea Racing. “We took a route that didn’t reward us and that conditioned Carlos’ race, as he risked crashing as he pushed to keep pace with the frontrunners. Shane rode well to take points in the first race and improve on that performance in race two. To ride with one hand in these conditions is not easy and took a lot of guts. From tomorrow we will begin to work towards Silverstone where, in cooler conditions, we hope to be able to respond with two significantly stronger results.”

Althea Racing’s next event is scheduled for the 1st of August,  round ten  of the World Superbike Championship at Silverstone.