The second round of the Superbike World Championship will take place this weekend in Thailand, and while Jonathan Rea has started the year in terrific form there’s plenty of reason for optimism along the pit lane.
Thailand will offer a true indication of what to expect this year in WorldSBK and while it’s unlikely we’ll see the same number of bikes fighting for the win, it’s likely that the scrap at the front will be just as competitive.
Rome wasn’t built in a day and championships aren’t won on the opening weekend of the season, but in Australia Jonathan Rea put down a marker to the field that showed that he won’t relinquish his World Superbike title without a fight.
Rea claimed a double victory at Phillip Island that was as measured and controlled as expected from the reigning champion. Even so the Northern Irishman had to fight off a spirited challenge to spray the Proseco from the top step.
Chaz Davies and Michael van der Mark forced the Kawasaki rider to dig deep in both races, and even though both successes came down to the last lap, there was a constant feeling that Rea was riding with more of a comfort level than his rivals.
Having that extra speed in hand when required has been the hallmark to plenty of champions in the past, and the while none of his rivals openly bemoaned the speed of the Kawasaki, some privately lamented about the straight line speed of Rea’s bike.
In both races it seemed that while the Ducati and Honda riders could match laptimes with Rea they required that an extra effort in comparison.
The Kawasaki ZX-10R still the fastest bike in a straight line, as perfectly illustrated by Rea’s race winning move in Race 2, and it is the most complete package on the grid. The performances of the machines are closer compared to last year, but in terms of performance the green bikes still hold an edge.
Ominously for the rest of the field Rea feels that he is just scratching the potential of the bike at this point.
“I feel like we’re working at about 85-90 percent potential of the bike,” said Rea. “I’m really proud to give Kawasaki these two wins. It’s the first time with the new bike. We hear so much noise about other people having new bikes. This is a new chassis, new bike, new engine. A big change from last year, which is how we attacked the winter. We had so many components to analyse.”
“Finally to get here just shows the strength of Kawasaki and the strength of the team behind me. There are so many people involved behind the scenes that have got the bike here. I’m just so grateful to be involved with a factory like Kawasaki.”
Chaz Davies once again looks to be the most likely rider to compete with Rea over the course of the season but this weekend’s race at the Chang International Circuit will be an important barometer of what to expect from the Welshman this year.
Crashing out of both races left Davies with a mountain to climb in the championship and he spent the rest of the season trying in vain to get back on level footing in the standings.
This year he’ll travel to Thailand feeling bullish about his chances. With the base setting of his Ducati having been, for the most part, set in stone since the middle of last year Davies has steadily grown in confidence.
Despite this, in Australia he struggled mightily on Friday and qualified on the third row, but found a solution in time for the race and should have claimed two podiums.
If his base setting works from the outset in Chang, Davies will be very confident of being able to fight with Rea. The Ducati is still short of top end speed but it’s now a manageable deficiency, and not the chasm in performance that we saw in the past – although it was clear after Australia that Davies is looking for more power from the Panigale.
“I’m not disappointed with the way I rode,” said Davies after crashing in Race 2 and remounting to finish tenth. “I felt like we’ve moved on from last year. Our electronics package is working good and in general I’m very happy with the bike. We just missed that last bit. We want to take home race wins and I think it’s pretty easy to see what that last bit is.”
Honda was competitive in Phillip Island, but until Michael van der Mark and Nicky Hayden prove to be competitive at other circuits, the jury will be out about their potential for this season.
The Fireblade has found performance, team insiders revealed that they had found 10bhp over the winter, but it remains to be seen if this will bring them closer to the front in races this year. Chang will be an ideal opportunity to gauge their potential for this year.
With Kawasaki, Ducati, Honda, and Yamaha all scraping for the lead group, Australia showed us that this could be an epic year for World Superbikes but it’s also important to remember that the Phillip Island promotes close racing.
As a result it will only be in the coming rounds, likely when we get back to Europe, where we will see a genuine picture start to develop. Australia was a window into the season, but the curtains haven’t been fully drawn yet, and this weekend will start to offer a bigger view of what to expect.
Photos: © 2016 Anant Deboor – All Rights Reserved
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