Assen, Netherlands – Having been a long time fixture on the World Superbike Championship calendar, Assen continues in its early season date and in its latest 4.555km layout for the 2008 season. Despite having been modified on numerous occasions as the demands of global racing have changed, Assen in still one of the classic circuits on the World Superbike trail, and features some unique challenges to man and machine – and to their tyres. Assen’s banked corners may be fewer than in previous decades, when it was an almost exclusively a pure-roads circuit, but as well as the largely gradient-free corners created in the new millennium, there are still flowing sectors on the last section of the track where crossing and re-crossing the crown of the road, and using cambers to help ultimate corner speed, are all part of the unique Assen experience. Widened over the years though it has been, Assen is still a relatively narrow ribbon of high-speed tarmac, and well deserves the reverence bestowed upon it by successive generations of riders. To win at Assen is still a special landmark in any rider’s career. Any one of ten riders or more have realistic chances to win races in the 2008 season, and Assen should be no different, especially as a twin-cylinder and a four-cylinder machines won a race each in 2007. Thus far in 2008, in six races we have already seen wins from riders on 1000cc four-cylinder machines, riders on the new 1200cc twins, competitors from factory teams and even a privateer. The main reason that SBK racing is so unpredictable and offers unrivalled competitiveness is that all the riders, in each and every class, run Pirelli control tyres, and all are offered the same choice from the solutions brought along to match the needs of each individual round. At Assen the World Superbike riders will choose between three front solutions and three rears, plus the qualifying tyre for those riders who make it into Superpole. The World Supersport competitors will have two front and three rear choices. Add in the riders in the Superstock classes and the total number of tyres Pirelli will transport to Holland is 6,100.