After a spanning career that has seen him racing in the United States, the grand prix paddock, and on the top steps of WorldSBK podiums, Chaz Davies is finally ready to retire.
There is a bit of a shakeup in the factory Ducati WorldSBK squad happening right now, as Michael Ruben Rinaldi has been named teammate to Scott Redding for the 2021 season.
This means that Chaz Davies is departing the factory squad, while the team is also sees its name change to “Aruba.it Racing Ducati” for next year.
World championship motorcycle racing takes another step back to the season returning at Misano.
The next three days sees both MotoGP and WorldSBK teams testing at the Italian circuit, preparing for the resumption of hostilities at Jerez in July and August.
Present are the MotoGP teams of KTM and Aprilia, allowed extra testing due to their status as concessions teams. Aleix Espargaro and Bradley Smith are riding for Aprilia, the second test for the Italian factory.
Saturday’s WorldSBK race saw only 12 riders on the grid, as six riders (Chaz Davies, Sandro Cortese, Marco Melandri, Leon Camier, Ryuichi Kiyonari, and Eugene Laverty) sat out the race in protest over the conditions.
Just 20 minutes before the start of Race 1 though, as many as 14 riders seemed set to sit out the day’s events, citing issues with the track’s surface, which had just been recently laid, and was still seeping oil to the surface, and was also dusty from lack of use.
However, with pressure being exerted on the riders to race, reportedly by their teams and Dorna, a number of riders lined up on the grid, despite their agreements with their colleagues.
Episode 100 (woohoo! one hundred shows!) of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one is a WorldSBK show. As such, this means that we see Steve English joined by Gordon Ritchie on the mics, as they are now our WorldSBK reporting duo for the 2019 season.
Recording straight from The Netherlands, the guys talk about the on-track action at Assen, where once again (how many times have we said that now?) it was a sweep by Alvaro Bautista and the factory-spec Ducati Panigale V4 R race bike.
This race weekend came with a twist though, as it snowed during Saturday’s events, which caused a cancellation of the day’s World Superbike races.
As such there is a limited amount to discuss, so we recruited Ducati rider Chaz Davies to the microphones for an interesting interview that you won’t want to miss.
And so the season ends for WorldSBK. The weather finally behaved at Jerez, and the four WorldSBK teams and three WorldSSP teams got a full day of testing in at Jerez.
Or rather, nearly a full day of testing: the track opened at 10am, but the riders didn’t go out for about 45 minutes, as cold track temperatures made it a perilous undertaking in those early minutes.
But the sun soon did its work, heated the asphalt, and away they went.
Three factories and eight WorldSBK riders turned up at Jerez on Monday, Ducati bringing their brand new Panigale V4R, but at the end, Jonathan Rea was fastest. Plus ça change.
All eyes were on the Ducati garage, and Alvaro Bautista’s first day on the Panigale V4 R. “First day at school” was how the Spaniard characterized it, taking some time to adapt to the bike. It was quite a switch from the Desmosedici he had been riding in MotoGP, the bike having a lot less power.
But, the V4 engine still has plenty, rival teams complaining that the Ducati was 10km/h faster than the others at the Aragon test. Here, the difference was less, but the Panigale was still clearly quicker than the rivals.
Jonathan Rea may have had a third consecutive double at the Portuguese round of WorldSBK, but that’s not to say there wasn’t plenty of action and intrigue as WorldSBK resumed following the summer break.
A number of the MotoGP teams have had a busy test at the Aragon circuit over the past two days. This is the test that played a role in not being able to move the Silverstone race to the Monday, a public holiday in the UK, as the trucks needed to travel the 2000km from Towcester to Alcañiz and set up ready for testing.
On Wednesday, Suzuki, Yamaha, and KTM were the factories taking to the track, with the Pramac Ducati squad also present. Thursday saw Yamaha and Pramac depart to make way for the factory Ducati squad. The teams were met with much better weather than at Silverstone, allowing two full days of testing, with the track improving as it got cleaned up with bikes circulating.