Carlos Checa

The Ducati Althea Racing Team has made a decision with regard to the next season of competition in the World Superbike Championship. Team owner and General Director Genesio Bevilacqua has reached an agreement with Shane Byrne who will join the Ducati Althea Superbike Team in 2010. The English rider will be team-mate to the Spanish rider Carlos Checa on the Ducati Superbikes. "Shakey" as his supporters call him, participated in the last Superbike world championship riding a Ducati bike and reaching the eighth final position in the riders championship standing. Byrne was also able to reach a podium obtaining the second place in race ... Read Full Story

Althea Racing Team is thrilled to announce that in the upcoming 2010 racing season the team will use the 2010 model Ducati 1098R Superbike. Due to the excellent relationship between Genesio Bevilacqua, the team's owner, and the Italian motorcycle company, the Althea team will be able to use highly competitive Ducati motorcycles together with an expert technical staff that matches Ducati's expectations. Read Full Story

Hannspree Ten Kate Honda riders Carlos Checa and Jonathan Rea both finished inside the top four in today's solitary free practice session at Imola in Italy in preparation for Sunday's two 12th round World Superbike championship races. A curtailed schedule meant that today's provisional qualifying session was lost after track surface problems resulted in the 4.93km circuit having to be cleaned. The World Superbike riders went out for the first practice session at 12.45 as planned, but extremely low levels of grip meant coming straight back into the pit boxes to sit out the rest of the session. With the hour's free practice session ... Read Full Story

With five podium finishes between them in the last four races, the Hannspree Ten Kate Honda pairing of Jonathan Rea and Carlos Checa is in the hunt for further prizes at this weekend's 12th round World Superbike championship event (25-27 September) at Imola in Italy. Spain's Checa has finished on the rostrum on four occasions this season, including two third places during the last outing at Nurburgring in Germany. The 37-year-old is clearly relishing the recent improvements in his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade since switching to Ohlins suspension in June this year. Rea, meanwhile, is looking to maintain the consistency of his podium challenges, having ... Read Full Story

Click the images below for bigger versions: The Hannspree Ten Kate Honda team enjoyed its first double podium finish in round 10 of the 2009 World Superbike championship at Brno today as Carlos Checa and Jonathan Rea finished race one in second and third positions respectively. It was the first time since the Ten Kate squad began Superbike racing in 2004 that it has had two riders on the same podium. Rea and Checa finished in fourth and fifth places in race two as Max Biaggi and Ben Spies took today's wins. The opening 20-lapper around the 5.4km Brno circuit began in dramatic style ... Read Full Story