Tag

debrief

Browsing

WorldSBK’s South American adventure saw the history books once again rewritten by Jonathan Rea with the Northern Irishman claiming a tenth consecutive victory.

The world champion claimed a comfortable win on Saturday, the series first ever race in Argentina, but after weekend of cleaning a dirty and dusty track it was the temperature that caused problems on Sunday.

With over 110F temperatures on the asphalt, it was as slick a surface as many riders could remember with overnight rain also washing away any rubber that had been put down on the surface. It was easy to make a mistake, and coming from the third row of the grid, Rea certainly made his fair share in the early laps.

Once on clear track however, he was imperious, and comfortably the fastest man on track. He used this advantage to charge down Xavi Fores, and claim a historic double that broke the long-standing record of Colin Edwards (2002) and Neil Hodgson (2003) for most consecutive victories in WorldSBK.

The US Round of the 2018 WorldSBK season highlighted, once again, the importance of hard work in motorcycle racing.

Last year, it was hard to imagine Milwaukee Aprilia standing on the podium on merit; on Sunday Eugene Laverty made his long-awaited return to the rostrum.

We have seen in recent rounds Yamaha win three races with the R1, but last weekend’s races arguably did more to prove the potential of the bike.

Following his double victory at Imola, Jonathan Rea has laid the foundation for his fourth consecutive WorldSBK title.

Jonathan Rea’s 59th WorldSBK victory saw the Northern Irishman join Carl Fogarty as the most successful rider in WorldSBK history. The triple champion was however quick to point out that winning races is good, but winning championships is better.

Still trailing Foggy by one title there is now a sense of inevitability that Rea will add to his title haul. The previous two years had seen Chaz Davies do the double at Imola, but he had no answers for Rea over the weekend.

The Kawasakis were the class of the field, but it was Rea who came out on top following a tough weekend for the Ducati rider, and with a 47-point advantage the title race is now firmly in Rea’s hands.

For the 2018 WorldSBK season, we are changing up our coverage format a little bit from last year, in order to provide more useful content for our racing fans.

First up, we are pleased to have Steve English providing coverage from the World Superbike paddock. Regular Asphalt & Rubber readers will recognize Steve’s name from a number of stories here on A&R, and he is also a regular host of our Paddock Pass Podcast.

With his day job being the voice of WorldSBK on the commentary feed, Steve’s expert insight will provide for us a preview of each WorldSBK round, as well as a debrief at the end of each race weekend, which will highlight the major takeaways from the racing action.

Additionally for our A&R Pro readers, Steve will be providing us with added racing analysis, as well as interviews with the WorldSBK riders, team members, and paddock fixtures, which you won’t want to miss. -JB

With that out of the way, let’s get to the opening round of the 2018 WorldSBK season, which is now in the books and certainly provided us with plenty of excitement and plenty to talk about. 

For the first time since Portimao 2011, Yamaha was able to celebrate two riders standings on the WorldSBK podium. In an action packed Race 2 at Magny Cours, Chaz Davies claimed his seventh race win of the season, ahead of Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark.

For Yamaha, this was the culmination of their efforts throughout the last 12 months – to turn their WorldSBK program into a front-running effort. While there is still clearly work to be done to transform the YZF-R1 into a race-winner, it has now been able to claim five podiums in 2017.