From a press release:

It’s back to Europe for Steve Martin after tough weekend in Japan

Steve Martin had a tough weekend on his DFX Ducati at the Sugo round of the World Superbike championship.

“We struggled here all weekend,” said Steve after the races. “Pirelli have definitely made improvements to the tyres since last year, allowing me to knock almost a second-a-lap off last year’s lap times. But the fact is that all the teams have made significant improvements since last year, the pace this season is incredible. We’ve still got some development work to do.”

The DFX Ducati team now fly back to Europe for some more testing before the Monza round of the WSB championship. “I knew it would be tough here, the standard of the Japanese wild card riders is very high and many of the teams have tested here several times.

“I’m glad to be going back to Europe where we’ll be at some tracks that we’ve tested at. I hope we can put on a better show at places like Monza and Lausitzring.”

Steve is also looking forward to spending a little time in the countryside around Milan. “I’m hoping to take off for a bit of relaxation after a tough schedule of travelling to the fly-away rounds. Everybody in the paddock is pretty relieved to have finished with this part of the season. It’s tough on the riders with all the flying and also hard on the teams as we all have to work out of boxes.

“But my trip to the country won’t be all about taking it easy, I’ve been training really hard recently and I’ll be taking my mountain bike with me to do some more work on my fitness.”

Steve finished 17th in the first race and 20th in the second race. He was the first rider home on Pirelli tyres in both races.