EUROPEAN CHALLENGE CONTINUES FOR TEAM HONDA GRESINI The unrelenting quest for MotoGP World Championship honours continues this weekend with barely enough time for the teams and riders to catch their breath after the last event. With the British Grand Prix now behind them, Team Honda Gresini are now looking ahead with optimism to the Dutch TT, which takes place as always on the final Saturday in June. Assen is the only present-day circuit that has been on the MotoGP World Championship calendar every year since its inaugural season of 1949. Dramatically altered last season in order to make way for a new motorsport theme park, the Dutch TT remains an unmissable event and still features flowing sections of track that are a pleasure for riders and fans alike. The track reduction, in fact, removed some of the most exciting corners, with their spine-tingling blind crests and camber. At round nine the championship reaches its halfway stage but the Team Honda Gresini riders are both ready for the latest challenge. During the weekend at Donington Park, Marco Melandri and Toni Elias were able to define the set-up of their RC212V machines in the wet and gather information that could prove crucial Assen, with rain and bad weather forecast for much of the weekend. MARCO MELANDRI: “Last year was a really tough race for me. It was only a short time after that terrible crash in Barcelona and I was still suffering. This time the situation is completely different but we are also going through something of a difficult period. The whole squad are working really hard but we still have a lot to do. The Dutch TT has always been one of my favourite races. Unfortunately it has lost some of its magic since they changed the track because they removed the most flowing section of the old layout.” TONI ELIAS: “Assen has always been my favourite circuit because it is technical, fast and flowing. Unfortunately I have never actually raced here in MotoGP and don’t really know the new layout too well because I only completed two laps in free practice last year when I crashed and hurt myself. I missed out completely in 2005 because I broke my hand at Le Mans so it will be virtually a new circuit to me. Hopefully I can have a nice race and pick up a better result than the last couple of races.” THE OTHER RACE: In MotoGP the racing doesn’t just take place on the track. As soon as the chequered flag was waved at Donington, the next race began, with the team packing up in just 3-4 hours and loading up the bikes and materials in to the trucks in preparation for the journey to Assen, where the track action will resume in just four days’ time. It is a long and tiring job for the Team Honda Gresini hospitality staff, who require around 14 hours to dismantle the entire structure – working late into the night on Sunday before rising early on Monday morning to set sail for Assen. It takes around four hours to cover the 200km to Harwick, the sea port of departure from British shores. After an overnight ferry crossing, the trucks disembark at Oeck Van Holland in the early hours of Monday morning and immediately tackle the 250km trip to Assen, where they arrive around lunchtime. “It’s a race against time,” says Maurizio Giordani, Honda Gresini’s Hospitality Manager, who is in charge of six members of staff. “And it doesn’t finish when we arrive at the track because we need another 14 hours to erect the hospitality unit again and have it ready for lunch on Wednesday.”