With thirteen rounds confirmed for the 2020 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship there have been some changes to the line up from 2019.
Leon Haslam has joined the new-look HRC WorldSBK team, Michael Ruben Rinaldi has gone to Team Go Eleven Ducati, Toprak Razgatlioglu has replaced Alex Lowes at the Pata Yamaha team with the British rider heading to Kawasaki alongside Jonathan Rea.
BSB champion Scott Redding is set for his rookie World Superbike campaign with Aruba.it Racing Ducati replacing Alvaro Bautista at the factory Ducati team with the Spanish rider heading to Honda.
GRT Yamaha has revealed an all-new line-up of Federico Caricasulo and Garrett Gerloff.
The 2020 World Superbike Championship entry looks like this:
Kawasaki Racing Team : Jonathan Rea & Alex Lowes
Aruba.it Racing Ducati : Chaz Davies & Scott Redding
Pata Yamaha : Michael van der Mark & Toprak Razgatlioglu
Honda : Alvaro Bautista & Leon Haslam
BMW Motorrad : Tom Sykes & Eugene Laverty
Pedercini Kawasaki : Jordi Torres & Lorenzo Savadori
GRT Yamaha : Federico Caricasulo & Garrett Gerloff
Ten Kate Yamaha : Loris Baz
Barni Ducati : Leon Camier
Orelac Kawasaki : Maxmilian Scheib
Team Go Eleven Ducati : Michael Ruben Rinaldi
Puccetti Kawasaki : Xavi Fores
Honda Mie Racing Team : Takumi Takahashi
Team Motocorsa Ducati : Leandro Mercado (From Jerez round onwards)
What a fantastic opening race we had at the Philip Island circuit in Australia for the start of the World Superbikes season. It was edge of the seat racing with the top 3 riding past the chequered flag in a photo finish end to race one making it the closest podium of the century!
Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Official Team) came through in first place; Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) in second and Scott Redding (ARUBA.IT Racing – Ducati) in third. The last time Yamaha won the first race of the season was in 1989 so a fabulous victory for the Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Official Team and of course Razgatlioglu.
Reigning World Champion, Jonathan Rea got off to a good start but whilst still on lap 1 he made contact with Sykes and went off into the gravel, managed to keep the bike upright and going and re-joined the track in last place. On lap 4 Rea and Caricasulo made contact at turn 4, with both riders managing to keep the bikes upright but then at turn 8 we saw Rea going round the outside of Rinaldi where he lost it and ended up in the gravel thus ending his race.
Race 2 saw a clean start had by all, with van der Mark having a great start when he managed to overtake round the outside and come from 5th to 1st but lap two sees Rea take the lead back.
Contact is made between Haslam and Rinaldi in turn 10 sending both riders into the gravel, Haslam manages to rejoin in last place but Rinaldi is not so lucky.
Lap 3 sees 1.6 seconds covering the top 10 riders with fantastic clean riding taking place and a lot of overtaking throughout the race. Towards the final stages of the race there is brilliant racing between Lowes and Rea who continually swapped places with van der Mark joining in too ending with Lowes ahead, Rea second followed by van der Mark.
The last lap and I was on the edge of my seat as Rea is having a look to try and get past Lowes as they come out of the last corner on the run up to the chequered flag, Rea gives it everything but Lowes just managed to stay ahead and take the win.
Wow! What a fantastic race. Great riding all weekend from all the riders.
We saw retirements from Takahashi on the Honda and the GRT Yamaha bike of Caricasulo when they broke down on lap 11 and Race One’s winner Razgatlioglu retired on lap 18 due to mechanical issues.
This season is looking like it’s going to be a great one.
Unfortunately due to the current travel restrictions put in place, the 2nd round of WSBK due to take place on the 13-15 March has been postponed making the next race (hopefully!) in Spain on the 27-29 March. Watch this space.
After round one of thirteen rounds the results so far are:
Driver’s / Team Standings so far:
|
Pos |
Rider |
Points |
Pos |
Team |
Points |
|
1 |
Alex Lowes |
51 |
1 |
Kawasaki |
57 |
|
2 |
Scott Redding |
39 |
2 |
Yamaha |
47 |
|
3 |
Toprak Razgatlioglu |
34 |
3 |
Ducati |
39 |
|
4 |
Jonathan Rea |
32 |
4 |
Honda |
23 |
|
5 |
Michael van der Mark |
31 |
5 |
BMW |
17 |
|
6 |
Alvaro Bautista |
20 |
|
|
|
|
7 |
Loris Baz |
20 |
|
|
|
|
8 |
Chaz Davies |
19 |
|
|
|
|
9 |
Leon Haslam |
17 |
|
|
|
|
10 |
Tom Sykes |
17 |
|
|
|
|
11 |
Maximillan Scheib |
10 |
|
|
|
|
12 |
Sandro Cortese |
10 |
|
|
|
|
13 |
Michael Ruben Rinaldi |
7 |
|
|
|
|
14 |
Xavi Fores |
5 |
|
|
|
|
15 |
Eugene Laverty |
5 |
|
|
|
|
16 |
Federico Caricasulo |
4 |
|
|
|
|
17 |
Garrett Gerloff |
2 |
|
|
|
|
18 |
Takumi Takahashi |
|
|
|
|
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