WSB: Ten Kate Honda take delivery of new Fireblade

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Ten Kate Racing have finally taken delivery of the 2017 Honda CBR1000RR SP2 that Nicky Hayden and Stefan Bradl will race in this year’s Superbike World Championship.

The team had been hoping to take delivery of the bikes prior to Christmas, but for unknown reasons this didn’t happen and the machines arrived at the Ten Kate workshop in the Netherlands this morning.

With the first tests of 2017 planned to take place in Spain in just two weeks’ time, the team will now have to work flat out to turn the standard, road going Fireblade SP2 into a World Superbike spec machine.

While the squad have their work cut out to have the bikes ready in time, 2006 MotoGP World Champion Nicky Hayden told MCN before Christmas he has every faith in the team to turn the machine into a contender by the first round at Phillip Island.

“I was hoping we’d be able to get out on the bike before Christmas to give the team a chance to see the data and any problems we might encounter, but that wasn’t possible and it is what it is,” said the American.

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“The Ten Kate team do a good job, we saw that from the improvements made with the new bike in 2016. I have every faith in them being able to do this with the new bike too. They are getting it late and have to turn it into a race bike, it doesn’t turn up from Japan ready-made, Ten Kate do it all themselves.

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