Sylvain Guintoli heads to Imola off the back of a character-building start to his career with the Pata Honda World Superbike Team.

Since winning the eni FIM Superbike World Championship on an Aprilia last year, the Frenchman is yet to finish a race in a position higher than fifth, but is buoyed by the fact that Jonathan Rea did the double on a Honda CBR at Imola last year.

“Assen started as quite a difficult weekend for us, but we ended up closer than we have been to the guys at the front,” Guintoli says ahead of Imola. “It was another important stepping stone to getting up there and at least I can see what’s going on now! It was a mixture of changes to the CBR, my own riding style and the Assen circuit suiting the package, but it was definitely a boost that we were able to catch the leaders in the first part of both races.

“It seems like Imola also suits the CBR because Johnny (Rea) had such a strong weekend there last season. It’s very technical and physical and tough on both riders and bikes, so I’ve been training hard since Assen, but it’s a great track with its own personality and it certainly gives us, as riders, an extra adrenalin shot.”

There is also optimism on the other side of the garage, as reigning World Supersport Champion Michael van der Mark has travelled to Italy off the back of a double podium result at his home venue of Assen. In the process, he became the first Dutchman in World Superbike history to finish on the rostrum in the premier class.

“I actually got to Italy a few days early, so I’ve been relaxing and driving around and enjoyed a visit to San Marino,” van der Mark commented on Tuesday. “It was fairly quiet after the busy weekend at Assen, but it was good to meet some fans at the Ten Kate Pitstop Day the following Saturday, even though the weather wasn’t very kind.

“I’m really looking forward to getting back into action at Imola. I really like the circuit but I know it will be very different on a Superbike than it was on my CBR600RR from last year.

“I hope we can make the Fireblade work as well here as Jonathan Rea made it work last season, but we have quite different settings so it won’t be easy. But we definitely found something really positive at Assen, working together as a team and analysing the data, so we’ll be looking for more this weekend in Italy.”

Set in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, Imola is located around 45 kilometres from Bologna and 375 kilometres from capital city Rome.