Lorenzo Zanetti and Michael van der Mark finished in fourth and fifth places respectively in the tenth-round World Supersport championship race at the Nürburgring in Germany this afternoon.

The 19-lap race around the 5.137km circuit was won by series leader Sam Lowes after his closest challenger Kenan Sofuoglu crashed out of contention. Starting from fifth place on the grid, Zanetti was battling in a podium position for much of the race but a small error two laps from the end saw him slip back a place.

It was a different race for van der Mark, who started from the fourth row after set-up issues and bad weather affected his qualifying performance. The 20-year-old Dutch ace dropped back to 16th in the opening laps but fought his way through the pack impressively to fifth, retaining fourth place in the points standings.

Lorenzo Zanetti – 4th

I have not been 100% fit this weekend, but after Silverstone I had some confidence. I wasn’t sure we could fight for the podium here but I like the circuit and we made some good steps. We changed completely the front of the bike after warm-up this morning. It was a big change and I started the race without trying it, which was a bit strange. Two laps before the end I made a mistake and I lost the podium position but before this I had a good rhythm and was staying with the front guys. I feel positive for Turkey and the rest of the season.

Michael van der Mark – 5th

My start was not so good and I probably released the clutch a little bit too fast. In the fourth corner a rider in front of me made a stupid move and cut right across me so I had to close the throttle. Everybody passed me and then I was 16th, I think. I had to push all through the race and, although I had the pace for the podium, I lost too much time and too many positions at the start.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

Michael started from quite a way back and then had to come back from 16th after not such a good first lap. To fight back to fifth was another amazing achievement and he showed again what he can do on the bike. Lorenzo also had a good race but couldn’t quite hold on to third place. He fought all through the race, though, and the result was a good achievement.

2013 World Supersport championship, round 10

Nürburgring, Germany – 5.137km, 19 laps

Race result:

1 Sam Lowes (GBR) Yamaha

2 Fabien Foret (FRA) Kawasaki

3 Kevin Coghlan (GBR) Kawasaki

4 Lorenzo Zanetti (ITA) Pata Honda

5 Michael van der Mark (NED) Pata Honda

6 Ricardo Russo (ITA) Kawasaki

Championship points after 10 of 14 rounds:

1 Lowes 185, 2 Sofuoglu 131, 3 Foret 121, 4 van der Mark 91, 5 Zanetti 86, 6 Scassa 69. Next round: Istanbul, Turkey – 13-15 September

This evening Dainese presented its 2014 collection in front of selected UK media and supported racers including Pol Esparagaró, Nicky Hayden, James Hillier, Guy Martin and Luis Salom. The special event took place ahead of the 12th round of MotoGP, Moto2 and Moto3 at Silverstone this weekend, where Esparagaró, Hayden and Salom will continue their respective season assaults.

New products unveiled from the 2014 collection include the Laguna Seca Evo P one-piece suit, two leather jackets (Stripes Evo Pelle and Laguna Evo Lady) and two textile jackets (Carve Master GTX and Laguna Seca D-Dry).

Three new gloves were introduced, namely the winter-warm Scout Evo GTX, the classically styled Essential and the Veloce sports glove, as well as three new boots – the Lince GTX for touring, a casual sneaker-inspired Street Biker D-WP and the racing-styled TR-Course Out. There were also two new jeans, the D1 1K and the D1 1K Pred, as well as some updates made to the Manis back protector.

More new products will be released from the collection later in the year.

Alongside the new products Dainese presented its D-air systems. Both launched on the market over the last two years the systems are designed to protect riders on track (D-air Racing) and on the road (D-air Street).

D-air Racing is a wireless system built into a Dainese one-piece leather suit that detects a fall or slide immediately and sends a trigger signal to activate the airbag. Not just an airbag, the system also features data acquisition software developed by German company 2D (2d-datarecording), which supplies some of the top teams in MotoGP and F1. The software gives D-air wearers an effective tool to monitor riding performance and record telemetry data, which can be downloaded and displayed on a computer.

The D-air Street is vastly different; the airbag and deployment facilities are fitted in the jacket and the mechanics of the whole system are fitted to the motorcycle. D-air Street features a fall sensor that is physically connected to a display unit on the bikes dash. This shows the rider system information, including when the device is connected, the battery life and information about the pillion’s system, if they are wearing one.

Both D-air systems are available from supported D-air Dainese dealers, while the new collection will start to be available in UK dealers from mid-October.

www.dainese.com

Councils need to commit to long term funding to see progress with the UK’s pothole crisis, according to road safety charity IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists).  The IAM recently surveyed local highway authorities to chart progress on implementing the key recommendations for the Pothole Review twelve months on.

Results show that councils are adopting new policies and are being much more open about how and when they will fill in potholes. • Forty-seven per cent of councils surveyed said that had published a report giving details on their repair policy and eighty-five per cent say they have clear definitions of what a pothole actually looks like. • Seventy-seven per cent of authorities publish clear information on their response time for repairs. • Fifty-seven per cent adopt innovative communication channels to make it easier for the general public to report a pothole.

The Pothole Review has led to significant changes in the way that councils repair roads.  Fifty-nine per cent of councils said that now they adopt a ‘prevention is better than cure’ approach and seventy-one per cent say that permanent repairs are their first choice when dealing with damaged roads.

IAM chief executive Simon Best said: “It’s probably too early to say that the Pothole Review has been a total success, but the early indications are mostly positive.  Communication with drivers and riders has improved and permanent repairs are now being used in place of constant patching.

“The building blocks are in place but the fact that complaints still seem to be rising means they have a real challenge on their hands.  At least in future that challenge and their response will be quantified and public and we will be watching for signs of real progress on the street.”

“The IAM recognise that it will take time to deliver the quality of roads we want but the lack of long term budgets in many councils is a real worry.  We may now know what constitutes a pothole but without consistent funding many will still go unrepaired storing up even more long term damage for the future.”

Lorenzo Zanetti bounced back from a month-long summer break to take fifth place in today’s first qualifying session for the tenth round World Supersport championship event at Nürburgring in Germany today.

The Italian rider is still not at 100% fitness after sustaining injuries in a crash in July but it didn’t stop the 26-year-old from setting a time of 1m59.686s at the 5.137km Nürburgring circuit, less than 0.7s from provisional pole sitter, Sam Lowes.

Despite a promising free practice session this morning, Zanetti’s Pata Honda team-mate Michael van der Mark was twelfth fastest this afternoon and admitted going in the wrong direction with the settings on his Honda CBR600RR.

Lorenzo Zanetti – P5 1m59.686s

My condition is still not perfect and I only restarted normal training one week ago, but I like this track. I lose a lot of time in turn three but it was a good start and I think we can improve things here and in other areas of the track. I had a crash at the end of the session and I must apologise to my team because, although I was fine, the bike is not OK and I made a lot of work for them.

Michael van der Mark – P12 2m00.100s

This morning started really well. We tried a few different things and in the last few laps I was able to do a pretty good time. We still had some changes that we needed though, so we tried them for qualifying but we went in the wrong direction. It was difficult to ride the bike this afternoon so I think we will go back to the earlier settings to make things easier tomorrow.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

Michael had a really good free practice this morning but in the afternoon things didn’t quite go his way. We changed the setting a little, but it had more of a negative effect and in the end he was twelfth and couldn’t match his free practice time. We’ll try again tomorrow. Lorenzo did well today and things are looking quite positive, despite his crash on the very last lap today.

2013 World Supersport championship, round nine – Nürburgring, Germany

First qualifying results:

1 Sam Lowes (GBR) Yamaha 1m58.993s

2 Kenan Sofuoglu (TUR) Kawasaki 1m59.107s

3 Fabien Foret (FRA) Kawasaki 1m59.433s

4 Vladimir Leonov (RUS) Yamaha 1m59.677s

5 Lorenzo Zanetti (ITA) Pata Honda 1m59.686s

6 Jack Kennedy (IRL) Honda 1m59.701s 12 Michael van der Mark (NED) Pata Honda 2m00.100s

Last weekend (the 24th-25th August Bank Holiday weekend) saw the return of the annual off road racing event ‘The Dawn to Dusk’ located at Walters Arena, South Wales.

Hundreds of riders flocked to the area to take part in the Youth (2 Hour), 6 Hour, 12 Hour, 24 Hour racing plus a brand new 10 Hour night race, the event attracted huge numbers of Marathon/Solo riders, two man and three man teams, plus a new record was set for Funduro Enduro competitors (a pre-race, single lap short motorcross stage held in elimination heats until the final three shoot it out to take glory).

The Saturday afternoon Youth (2 Hour) race held for youngsters between the ages of 10 and 16 years old kicked off with the Senior class rider Daniel Davies coming first -  the track was designed to provide enough of a challenge without any real extreme sections. With Dean Ewards coming second, followed by Liam Barlett in third place - the youngsters each completed 7 laps of the track.

Following a briefing for the 24 Hour race teams from Nick Plumb (Touratech UK’s MD) the riders raced away at 7:00pm undertaking the ultimate off-road challenge the UK racing scene has to offer. Individual riders and teams leaving in classes dug deep to push themselves through the whole day and night of racing.  At 7:15pm the brand new 10 Hour night race started (made up of bikes of 575cc or less of a single or twin cylinder format beginning with a Lemans start) with groups leaving in waves depending on their allocated classes.

With the sun rising on the Sunday morning the riders  turned off their beams to continue with the remainder of the day course. With a 7:00am start the 12 Hour race competitors rolled up to the start line to warm up their engines eager to tackle the terrain ahead, amongst the fresh 12 Hour riders the 24 hour hard core entrants rode on. The 10 Hour race ended at 5:15am – Single Cylinder format winner John Hustwaite crossed the line in first place after completing 24 laps, closely followed by Steve Rose and William Bowman claiming second (22 laps) and third place (17 laps) respectively. Twin Cylinder winner Chris Prickett put in a respectable 8 laps.

After a punishing ride the chequered flag waved an end to the  24 Hour race  - 4 rider Sportman team winners RJS SUPERBIKE completed 48 laps, 3 rider Sportman team MPM Racing came first completing 42 laps, 3 Rider Clubman team SUNDAY SIDE completed a 52 lap win, 2 Rider Clubman team ROEGHOUWERS achieved a win with 50 laps. Other class winners included Marathon Clubman MARATHON BRIERLEY (42 laps), Marathon Veteran MARATHON GAUNT (37 laps), Marathon Expert MARATHON BILES (47 laps), and 2 Rider Expert winners PSV DIRECT achieved 54 laps.

The 6 Hour Race (the perfect introduction to endurance off-road riding, and a favourite with first time Dawn to Dusk competitors) began at 1pm on Sunday afternoon. With a short run to their bikes with a LeMans style start the riders were keen to swing their legs over their machines and experience the event.

The entire event finished at 7pm once the overall (and well deserved) 24 Hour race winner with 54 laps PSV DIRECT crossed the line, and the mass event chequered flag finish looked absolutely spectacular.

Over £2000 in prize money was handed out at the event, comments we have received from the competitors have been the most positive we have ever had – the aim this year was to reduce the level of extremes to make them ‘slightly’ easier in order to encourage everyone to have a go, a strategy which achieved the desired result of ensuring that all riders/classes fully enjoyed the racing.

Dawn to Dusk 2013 was a great success - not only due to the weather and track conditions (which really gave the riders a boost allowing them to put their off road riding skills to the test) but also because of the excellent support staff/marshals all of whom put in the extra effort.

The next Dawn to Dusk event will  take place during the August 2014 Bank Holiday weekend, our goal is to improve the event year on year and for 2014 it will be bigger and better than ever!

For a complete list of race results