Gerrit ten Kate was a motocross rider who turned to mechanics and dealership work after his own career wound down. In 1993 he gave up his motocross activities entirely to run Ten Kate Motorcycles, a dealership in Nieuwleusen. A chance encounter with local road racer Harry van Beek brought the team its first taste of road racing success when van Beek received help with his machine and subsequently proved it the fastest bike at a Hockenheim Superstock wildcard entry in 1994. That result drew the team into road racing maintenance professionally, and by 1995 Ten Kate had entered its own regional Dutch road racing programme, managed by Ronald ten Kate, Gerrit's nephew.
Ten Kate entered the World Supersport Championship full-time in 2001 using Honda CBR600F4i machinery. Success came quickly: in 2002 Fabien Foret delivered Honda its first Supersport world title under the Ten Kate banner. The team then embarked on a historic run, winning six consecutive World Supersport Championships with the Honda CBR600RR. Chris Vermeulen took the 2003 title, Karl Muggeridge won in 2004, and Sébastien Charpentier claimed back-to-back crowns in 2005 and 2006 — becoming the first rider ever to successfully defend a Supersport title. Kenan Sofuoglu won in 2007 and Andrew Pitt completed the sequence in 2008, cementing the team's dominance in the class across a decade.
In 2004 Ten Kate stepped up to the Superbike World Championship, running Chris Vermeulen on the Honda CBR1000RR as a privateer entry despite Honda having no direct programme in the class. Vermeulen excelled, scoring four wins and finishing fourth in the championship, remaining in title contention through the final round. The team expanded to two riders in 2005 with Karl Muggeridge joining, and Vermeulen recorded six wins to finish runner-up in the championship.
James Toseland joined in 2006 after Vermeulen's departure to MotoGP, and the Briton finished runner-up that year with three wins. In 2007, Toseland delivered the team its Superbike World Championship, winning eight races and clinching the title by two points in the season's final race. That title gave Ten Kate its greatest achievement in superbike competition and confirmed the team's status as Honda's primary racing standard-bearer.
Subsequent seasons saw a rotation of notable riders. Carlos Checa and Ryuichi Kiyonari rode the CBR1000RR in 2008, the team entered under the Hannspree Ten Kate Honda name. Jonathan Rea became a long-term fixture from around 2009, partnering Leon Haslam under the Pata Honda banner in 2013, when Pata became title sponsor and the squad was formally known as the Pata Honda World Superbike Team. Rea scored wins at Assen and Donington Park during 2012 and also substituted for the injured Casey Stoner at the Repsol Honda MotoGP team during that period. In 2013 he entered his fifth consecutive year on the CBR1000RR Fireblade and sixth overall with Ten Kate.
Honda formally ended its eighteen-year backing of Ten Kate at the close of the 2018 season, with the sudden withdrawal reportedly pushing the organisation toward bankruptcy. The team was rebuilt and returned to competition, participating in the Superbike World Championship for a part-season from June 2019 with Loris Baz, before transitioning fully to World Supersport. The rebuilt team competed in association with Gulf Althea Racing BMW Motorrad during its transition period before settling its renewed Supersport identity.
In its current form, Ten Kate Racing competes in the World Supersport Championship and has fielded riders including Can Oncü and Yuki Okamoto. The team operates independently of a factory umbrella, a significant shift from its decades as Honda's official competition arm. Despite the change in circumstances, the Ten Kate name remains synonymous with consistent professional motorcycle racing across multiple championships and generations of riders.
Ten Kate Racing's record across its Honda years stands among the most prolific in World Supersport history: seven Supersport world titles and James Toseland's 2007 Superbike World Championship define the team's peak. Its success gave Honda a competitive platform across both classes for nearly two decades and developed riders who went on to MotoGP and broader prominence. The team's operational continuity through the 2018 collapse and subsequent rebuild reflects an organisation rooted more in the passion of the ten Kate family than in factory support alone.