Capannori – The Team Pro Ride Real Game Honda informs that unfortunately finds itself in the uncomfortable situation of missing the Assen round (by now only this one) of the World Superbikes. This is the last piece of a domino effect caused by the lost of its 2 main sponsors: Real Game and Helios. These news were taken very sadly by the team that is working hard to come back as soon as possible. Pro Ride is dealing with its next rider for the 2012 season and nothing else in the structure will be changed, since we did not find any problem that could justify a technical change concerning the bike or a technical sponsor. Concerning the team, the aim is to come to back to racing shortly. The commercial department is working on future agreements, both racing department and on-line shop are active, we continue to tune bikes to privateers and give track assistance, technical consultancy and services to private teams. Pro Ride thanks all its technical sponsors that believed in this project and we confirm that we are keeping the same technical package from the World Superbikes at our commercial side, a decision taken since 2009 and our structure and labs are available to these partners at full time for testing and developing new racing products.

Ing. Marco Nicotari, CEO Pro Ride srl:

"There’s not much to say. The only solution is temporarily stop our racing activities in the World Superbikes, avoiding any further damages to the company and to the image of the championship itself. Anyway I thank both Real Game and Helios for the support. They are serious companies with whom I hope to work with again in a more stable future. I also thank Infront to believe in the potentiality of our team, leaving the doors open for a possible restart still on this season. I thank all our technical sponsors, for giving us official support even if we are a private team. As an engineer, I founded Pro Ride because I wanted a space to create, to come with new ideas. I’m not interested in nothing that comes ready or in solutions that come on packages. When we’ll be once again in conditions to finally prove and develop what we see as the right road, then I’ll get the team together. Our Honda CBR SBK is a great bike. The CBR is for me a model made of challenges and new possibilities, that’s why it has been our choice for the past 6 years. And from this choice we built a unique technical package. We are Honda and we stay Honda.”

"I’m happy to have made this experience in the World Superbikes with the team Pro Ride. But as the sponsors decided to leave, there were no economical conditions to move on. I thank the Team and the sponsors and it is a pity that we cannot keep the project. I’ll continue racing for the Italian Superstock 1000 Championship and I hope our roads will cross again in the future.”

Race Report Imola WorldSBK - The first European races were marked by unlucky circumstances for the Team Pro Ride Real Game Honda. In Race 1 Lorenzo Alfonsi accidentally burnt the clutch at the starting grid and could not complete the first lap before re-entering into the pits. Race 2 was the possibility of coming out with a better result, but Alfonsi re-entered after 13 laps claiming a still non-verified technical problem. The Tuscan team unfortunately hasn't found the proper racing conditions to support the potentiality of its Superbike. The Honda CBR 1000 RR is absolutely a racing bike that can bring interesting results to the Championship, it is always a Honda machine and besides the technical package we have choosen talks by itself. Even if the bike has not been that much on the track in 2012 yet, it was possible to get some important data that can be the basis of where we are missing and where we are done. The bike certainly do not have to struggle with suspensions, engine or brakes. That's the reason it offers an easy ride. The aim now is focusing on the HRC electronics, a complex and rich tool and only the track and lots of lap time can give us the conditions to cross the missing gap to its advanced development. Assen is a well-known track for Pro Ride and once again we intend to push all the team to take the best of the material we have in hands, which would help a lot to understand where we can still improve.

Imola – The Team Pro Ride Real Game Honda restarts in Imola at the World Superbike Championship with Lorenzo Alfonsi focused on defining a setting that can fit in the Tuscan rider’s riding style. The team from Lucca has never made a test with Alfonsi before and the first sessions today were for searching for some data for the second qualifying tomorrow. The team knows that there are a long road ahead to reach a competitive lap time, but the aim is not that far. Pro Ride staff finds himself in a good working atmosphere and the challenge now is to stay the most possible on the track, once only making so many laps we will have enough data to understand where to go. Besides, the more Lorenzo stays on the track the faster he remembers his Superbike way of riding.

 “We have worked well today, we actually found some solutions. Let’s say that the bike has been built based on my profile and this is a quite good starting point. We still need to define some details and from tomorrow on we are ready to prove those solutions. I think the bike will be better, of course I knew it would be hard mainly because we haven’t tested before. Anyway, once we can improve some points I believe we will get some positions.”

Marco Nicotari, team manager and technical director

“Seguiamo nel passo a passo, desta mattina a sto pomeriggio Lorenzo ha migliorato praticamente 3 secondi e comincia a riprendere di nuovo un può la mano di cosa è una Superbike, ma non abbiamo fatto nessun test prima e quindi sappiamo che per avere dei risultati lui deve girare ancora tanto in pista. Domani speriamo, non nel qualifying, ma a fine giornata avere sceso ancora con questo tempo, il nostro target è girare intorno ai 1’50, se riusciamo a girare in ‘50 entro domani sarà per noi una vittoria. Poi in gara sono sicuro che lui girerà ancora più veloce, perché più va in pista più si ricorda di cosa è una superbike e più va forte. Comunque stiamo lavorando e siamo già contenti per i passi avanti che abbiamo fatto oggi.”

“We are moving step by step. From this morning up to the afternoon Lorenzo improved almost 3 seconds and then he starts to get his Superbike style back, but we haven’t tested before, Pro Ride have never raced in Imola before with a Superbike so we know we need so much lap time before starting to make some results. Tomorrow we hope, not at the qualifying but at the end of the day to have improved the lap time. Our target is 1’50, if we can get ’50 tomorrow it will be for us a victory. Then for the race I am sure that Lorenzo will be faster, he will more and more be more a Superbike rider again and each day he will be better and more prepared and stronger on the race track. Anyway we are working hard and we are happy for the improvements we have made today.”

1. J. Smrz – 1’48.146
2. J. Lascorz – 1’48.176
3. T. Sykes – 1’48.246

Capannori – 26/03/2012 – The Team Pro Ride Real Game Honda is happy to announce a new sponsor that is supporting the Tuscan team at the World Superbikes: Helios, a company from Grosseto specialized in photovoltaic systems and renewable energy.

A young company with a modern view, and its vice president, Mr. Mauro Viscuso, has quickly understood the business possibilities that are behind a sponsorship investment in an event like the World SBK. Believe in the sport, in the talent of a rider like Lorenzo Alfonsi and in the professionalism that exists in the paddock of a world championship is nothing but showing the strength of a new brand and also believing that this brand can surely get many benefits through sportive marketing on technical and serious basis.

A initiative to be motivated and that can only bring more fascination and color to an event that sees more e and more the presence of important company and that specifically for Helios, Alfonsi and Pro Ride it is a moment of advertising the Tuscan base of the team and also a way to communicate that the “sustainable development” concept has also to do with the racing world.

Marco Nicotari, Team Manager and Technical Director:

 “It has been years that we are searching for Tuscan partners for our project in the World Superbikes. Since we have created Pro Ride, we have more customers and sponsor from all the other regions of Italy than the ones from Tuscany. With Alfonsi and Helios we are restarting the 2012 project in a happy and promising way. I found in Mauro Viscuso the model of entrepreneur that our country needs nowadays: the braveness to dare new paths and to see always a step ahead. We need more companies like Real Game and Helios, that do not start the day with the ordinary “we are living a crisis” but with the rare “let’s work hard!”

Mauro Viscuso , CEO Helios spa

“I am happy to support in this project Lorenzo Alfonsi, I am not only Helios SpA CEO, but also Lorenzo’s personal friend, we know each other for years and he has given us so many nice moments. This year it will be a great challenge for Lorenzo, for the Team Pro Ride and Helios. Go for it guys!  

Lorenzo Alfonsi, rider

“ I can’t wait for the moment  this new adventure will start. I have a strong bond with Helios Impianti, a photovoltaic company from Grosseto and Tuscan like me. I thank them a lot, they always give me a great support. It is very kind  that my team, Pro Ride Real Game Honda, has given a great space for Helios.  A nice partnership was born today.”

For further information:

Helios official website: www.heliosimpianti.it

Pro Ride Motorsports officially communicates that Raffaele de Rosa is not anymore the rider for the Pro Ride Real Game Honda,  our team at the World Superbike Championship. We have taken Raffaele decision and we wish him a lot of success in his professional career.

However the presence of the Tuscan team at the World Superbike Championship goes on, and the Italian rider Lorenzo Alfonsi will be the one who will defend Pro Ride colors from Imola race on. The agreement was made last Saturday at Pro Ride headquarters in Lucca and we are happy to keep with the project started in Phillip Island last February. Last Thursday the cases with the racing structure arrived from Australia and our staff started to assemble the bike for this re-start and new challenge.

Alfonsi, born in 1980 in Florence, has started in the World Superbikes in 2005 and he is a well known rider at the paddock once he is very professional and with a both strong and nice character. A rider with a lot of experience with 1000cc bikes and for sure it is a starting point of a real partnership among technical knowledge, maturity and the instinct of riding faster and faster. Pro Ride with Lorenzo becomes Tuscan D.O.C.

Eng. Marco Nicotari, Team Manager and Technical Director

“I know Lorenzo since 2007 and since that moment I have been always in contact with him about our projects. Each year we got different roads, but I always saw him as a great rider. A sportsman that has grown up inside the paddock in a very honest and professional way and that absolutely deserves to come back to the World Superbikes. A rider that will bring to us his talent and so many “kilometers” in Superbikes. We will assemble to him a reliable bike, made based on his profile.  There will be so much work ahead for his first race with us at Imola. We are full of confidence and a I am personally happy for this new challenge”.

Lorenzo Alfonsi, pilota

“I am very happy to come back to the World Superbikes! I want to immediately take the bike, both me and Pro Ride staff are motivated to make everything works well in this season. I know Marco for such a long time and we get along well together. I really want to make it right and I believe in this project. It is for sure a great opportunity to come back to the World Superbikes and I thank both Pro Ride and Helios for believing in me and for the support. We will work together to get so many points for the championship. And as we know each other for some years, we are already working well and full of energy to make a good result in Imola.”

Phillip Island – The first race of the World Superbike Championship for the Team Pro Ride Real Game Honda were crowned by a bit of unlucky and a lot of hard work to achieve a good result right from the beginning. It is clear that the level is very high and that we arrived in Australia as the only team that hadn’t had tested before and with a rookie rider. So with this context in mind we can say that today we made a great job and a good result. After a week of testing and racing we can say that it ended well. Mainly because who has experience in racing knows how much dedication and track kilometers one needs to make competitive a team. And inside the space we could occupy this weekend, the result is a team in evolution, that still needs to test a lot to be able to give to the public and to ourselves the results we are searching for.

But talking about the facts, unfortunately we did not participate to Race 1 because of a handle bar bracket that broke on the grid the moment one of our technicians was taking out the front stand of the bike seconds before the warm up lap. There’s no much to say about an episode like this.

Then in Race 2 he has started well, we could see he was having fun. He overtook some riders and around the middle of the race we have even arrived in the points zone, but it is true that riding in Superbike is not very much simple, it is something that one doesn’t learn in 2 days. The point is that only in the last 5-6 laps that De Rosa had problems riding the bike and unfortunately lost some seconds and he finished the race on the 17^th position. For us this is a victory, to finish the race with both rider and bike that works well and produced many data to study at home to find the best electronics setting for a riding stile of a rider that had never had contact to electronics before. It was hard to ride with the quick shifter that behaves in a particular way after half race when the tires have a certain consummation. For this we need to make more track tests and working hard at home, once this is a typical characteristic of the Superbikes and an element that one must learn little by little how to cope with on the race track. We have a talented rider, and we know that it is a matter of time to make the results come. Here we learn everyday and we see today as the first one at “school”

In Imola we will come stronger and ready to take the best of our CBR 1000 RR and also give the conditions to De Rosa to face races that will be funny to watch to all of us at the Team Pro Ride Real Game Honda.

Raffaele de Rosa, rider:

“During the first part of the race I had fun, also passed some riders. I started behind, but I felt I was strong right in the first laps. Then I overtook some riders and got more motivated with the race and the bike. From the second half of the race on I had some problems in managing the quick shifter, but until that point I was having fun. Being my first race in the Superbikes I can say it was a good one, even if honestly we are missing more track tests. Besides, I didn’t make Race 1 and I couldn’t get any experience for Race 2. So taking these things into account that was the result we were expecting. Let’s see Imola.”

Eng. Marco Nicotari, Team Manager and Technical Director:

“In Race 1 we had a very sui generis problem something that had never happened before: the handle bar bracket broken at the starting grid and we couldn’t start. For Race 2 we prepared the bike with the same setting we had planned for Race 1 and at the end everything was alright. We knew that the consumption of the tires was excessive here, but at the end of the race our tires were in the same conditions of the other bikes, we checked. The lap times were more or less the same of what we have done during the tests and the racing weekend. So now we have a 2 seconds gap and we evaluate that we can decrease this gap at the most to 0.8 seconds, that it is our gap from the first riders. We need to work, in order to help Raffaele to learn all the characteristics of this class that is completely different from Moto2, I mean the characteristic of the Pirelli tires, the characteristic of a bike much powerful and with electronics. And this is a lot to learn in only one race weekend. In my opinion it was a good race. While he was among other riders and overtaking them he was having fun. Now it’s time to work to Imola.”

Picture by Kel Edge

 Phillip Island – The Team Pro Ride Real Game Honda has finished the qualifying day and free practice in Phillip Island with a good balance: the Pro Ride rider Raffaele de Rosa has improved his lap time in more than 1 second and the bike presents also an improvement and is more competitive at the track. De Rosa feels more integrated with his new Honda CBR 1000 RR and the team is dedicating a lot to solve a problem with the electronics that disturbed the free practices in the afternoon. The bike is going better on the track and the team is excited to see the performance of Raffaele on the races tomorrow.

Raffaele de Rosa, pilota

“This morning we put the bike the way it was before, I mean the configuration of Monday tests, and at this point it started to let me work better. We did not have problems and then we understand better what is necessary and what we want for this bike. During the afternoon I made a kind of race simulation, but the wind was really annoying. At the end of the practice we had some problems with the electronics and I hope it can be sorted out. But anyway the bike is better now and we are ready for the race.”

Ing. Marco Nicotari, Team Manager and Technical Director

“For the qualifying we finally found a solution that Raffaele likes to ride, the bike is little by little adapting itself to him and the other way round. He has actually riden faster during the qualifying today and we could make a step further. I think we could even do better but there were the strong wind that disturbed a bit and the new situation for Raffaele, but we are quite happy: a safe qualifying with a good lap time. In the afternoon we tried the long run and everything was ok but a problem with the electronics that we are solving for the warm up tomorrow. The bike setting for the race we do have, the tyre choice has been made, I think it will be a very tight race since the weather is extremely hot (we faced air temperature 40 degrees and track temperature 60 degrees today in the afternoon, let’s see how the bike will behave and also Raffaele in his first race at the World Superbike Championship.”

Results - Phillip Island  Qualifying Practice

1. T. Sykes - 1'31.323

2. M Biaggi - 1'31.477

3. C Checa 1'31.621

24. Raffaele de Rosa - 1'33.401

Pictures: http://www.proridegp.com/photo_-12-En.html

Picture by Kel Edge

 Phillip Island – Venerdì 24.02.2012 – The World Superbike Championship has officially started, with the first free and qualifying practices at the Phillip Island Round. As usual, the track is the favorite one for 9 of 10 riders, and the nice sunny day has completed the post card view we can see from here, a view that always attracts the public that want to closely see their two-wheels-heroes.

For the Team Pro Ride Real Game Honda there are a lot of work ahead before being competitive. We have tested for two days this week, however it was certainly not enough to have 100% of clear ideas of how our Fireblade must connect itself with de Rosa’s talent. There are still a lot to test, but we have overused the precious time we had to collect the most number of data possible aiming a better qualifying tomorrow. Actually some electronic problems that did not appear in the previous days have been present today and it was a good alert to indicate the road we need to take. It is not an easy job define a bike for a rider that did not have enough time to test it. There will be still some time to find the right harmony, but we are not very far. Today practices gave us the idea of what is the easiest CBR for Raffaele and that was our choice for tomorrow.

Raffaele de Rosa, rider

“We had some engine problem this morning that did not allow me to exit well from some corners. Then during the afternoon we started to test something better but it was a restart and unfortunately we did not have enough time to take advantage of the changes we had made. It will be for tomorrow.”

Eng. Marco Nicotari, Team Manager and Technical Director

“Today we started with a completely different setting, trying to give more grip to at the rear tyre to Raffaele. But at the end we realized that the best bike was the one from the first day of tests. As he still needs to make a lot of track time to get more experience, he still does not have all the tools to give us clear indications. So we need until this moment to decide ourselves what to do. So we are remaking the bike more or less the way it was in the beginning, since it was the one with what he had more confidence. Tomorrow morning the track conditions will be better due to the lower temperature, so we hope we and finally find the second that we are looking for since we arrived here.”

Results – Friday – Qualifying First Session - Australian Round

1.       J. Rea – 1’31.959

2.       J. Smrz – 1’32.116

3.       D. Giuliano – 1’32.198

25. R. De Rosa – 1’34.979

Pictures at: http://www.proridegp.com/photo_-12-En.html

 Picture by Kel Edge

 Phillip Island – The second day of official tests in Phillip Island was quite busy for the Team Pro Ride Real Game Honda. The team has chosen a setup for its Honda CBR 1000 RR that was not the best solution for this track and De Rosa could not make the most of the bike to get a better lap time. The disadvantage of not have tested during the winter time was evident, but the good news is that we could use the space of this test in a efficient way and then the team could not only collect useful data but also delete a lot of wrong roads that could actually cause problems for the races day. With the assistance of our technical partners and a long briefing with the rider and the team, we were able to arrive to a certain setting for Friday. However we are alert that the next free practices surely will give us more precise indications for the races on Sunday. It is clear that all of us here are restarting, the Superbike paddock has for sure a very high and competitive level and we are conscious that it will take some time to put all this puzzle well together. The challenge is really exciting even if the team will have to work three times more to get to where we aim to be.

Raffaele de Rosa, rider:

“Today we have made an important change in the bike setting comparing to yesterday, we tried a different basis. But at the end the bike was harder to ride than yesterday. Besides after all the laps I made yesterday my body felt all this time far from the tracks. The important is that we have collected a lot of information and this was the main aim of this test. All the data we got here and the laps I made gave us the main indications for Friday practices. During these couple of days I could observe the Superbike style, the trajectories, my opponents’ specific style, etc. All these things are important to help to prepare myself properly for the first races and also for developing my riding style in the Superbikes throughout the season.”

Ing. Marco Nicotari, Technical Manager

“Today we couldn’t improve notably , but even if the lap times doesn’t show much, Raffaele was actually riding better. We took a road aiming to improve the bike, but unfortunately it wasn’t the right one and we were not able to get better lap times. Yesterday he was riding at the same pace with less fatigue. And today he it took much more effort for the same result. After analyzing the data we found where was the mistake and finally decided the setup for Friday morning. We hope it will bring a better result.”

Results – Day 2 –  Infront Test Phillip Island

1.       T. Sykes – 1’31.648

2.       C. Checa – 1’31.652

3.       J. Smrz – 1’31.800

22. Raffaele de Rosa – 1’34.341

Pictures: http://www.proridegp.com/photo_-12-En.html

Picture by Kel Edge