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Kawasaki Racing Team

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At last weekend’s Argentinian round for the WorldSBK Championship, the Kawasaki Racing Team had something special in mind for Race 1.

It wasn’t a new race strategy; they didn’t find 10hp extra in the ZX-10RR motor; nor did they make any major chassis changes.

What the team did do though was dig into the 125 years of Kawasaki history, and run with two special throw-back liveries for Saturday’s race.

The level of competition continues to increase in each season of the WorldSBK Championship, but each year Jonathan Rea rises to the occasion, with Kawasaki rider making it six titles in-a-row with the 2020 season.

For this year, the battle for the title came down to the final round of the season, with WorldSBK returning to the Estoril circuit in Portugal because of the coronavirus restrictions.

The new track on the calendar didn’t phase Rea though, as he took the championship easily during Saturday’s race.

In a move that surprised no one today, Jonathan Rea has inked another multi-year deal with Kawasaki in the WorldSBK Championship.

The news was expected as Rea has been unstoppable ever since he joined the Kawasaki Racing Team (KRT) in 2015, which has led to a record-breaking five WorldSBK titles in a row for the Northern Irishman.

One of the most talented riders on any track right now, Rea is the man to beat in the production-based paddock, and KRT has honed the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10RR into an absolute weapon for its riders.

To balance performance and make the championship more interesting, the rule makers at the WorldSBK series set maximum rev limits for all the entered bikes at the beginning of the season.

This usually isn’t much of a newsworthy event, but with the recent crop of superbikes hitting stratospheric numbers in their homologated street form, it is causing some interesting issues in the WorldSBK Championship.

Confirming the news we already reported on, Alex Lowes will leave the Pata Yamaha team at the end of the 2019 WorldSBK, and move into green colors for next year, as the teammate to Jonathan Rea in the Kawasaki Racing Team.

Lowes replaces Leon Haslam in the factory Kawasaki team, and brings with him a great deal of knowledge on Team Green’s fastest rising competitor: Yamaha.

Confirming rumors long held in the WorldSBK paddock, Leon Haslam will not be with the Kawasaki Racing Team in the WorldSBK paddock next year. Though it hasn’t been announced yet, Alex Lowes is expected to take Haslam’s seat.

Haslam’s role in the KRT squad came after his British Superbike Championship win in 2018, and while this year’s season showed mixed results for the British rider (including a win at the Suzuka 8-Hours), the opportunity to add another top Superbike talent alongside Jonathan Rea was too much of an allure for Team Green.

Take a good look at it – this is the Suzuka 8-Hours race winning endurance bike that Jonathan Rea and Leon Haslam took to victory this year.

As with any endurance-spec race bike, this Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10RR is a very special animal, and one can pore over the photos here looking at all the interesting modifications that go into a Suzuka-winning machine.

For us, our eyes always go towards the quick-change wheels and brakes, but there are interesting items on every corner of the motorcycle.

Episode 111 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one is another special edition from the Suzuka 8-Hours. This means that we see Steve English joined by Jensen Beeler on the mics, as they are our Suzuka specialists.

Of course, the show has to start with a discussion about who actually won this year’s edition of the Suzuka 8-Hours, as the race’s conclusion, and the few hours after the checkered flag, were anything but straight-forward.

As expected, the result of the 2019 Suzuka 8-Hours was decided well after the podium ceremony for the Yamaha Factory Racing Team, with the factory Kawasaki team protesting Race Direction’s interpretation of the rulebook.

Agreeing with the Kawasaki Racing Team’s reading, the FIM concluded that because the race ended on a red flag, the results should be counted from the first full lap before the incident, which had KRT leading by a comfortable margin. 

This overrules Race Direction’s opinion that KRT failed to return to the pits five minutes after the race ended, which saw the Kawasaki team declared a non-finisher, and thus off the podium box.