Episode 244 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and it is a WorldSBK show, which means that this one sees Steve English and Gordon Ritchie on the mics.
After some technical difficulties trying to publish earlier shows, this episode sees the guys recapping the racing and news from both the Jerez and Portimão rounds.
Confirming our earlier report, Eugene Laverty has made his move to the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK team official today, as he replaces Markus Reiterberger’s on the team.
The news marks a return to the Shaun Muir Racing team for Laverty, who rode for the squad in 2017 and 2018, under the Milwaukee Aprilia banner.
Struggling on the Team Go Eleven Ducati this year, Laverty’s move to the BMW Motorrad squad could be well-timed, as the German bike has shown great progress over the course of the 2019 WorldSBK season.
While the line up for the 2019 MotoGP season was settled surprisingly early in the year, the opposite has been the case for WorldSBK. With just two weeks to go to the first full test of 2019, there are still a whole range of seats open, and questions going unanswered.
One of the reasons for the delay became clear at the EICMA show in Milan last week. While the manufacturers were presenting their newest bikes, including some of the key machines that will star in World Superbikes next year, a couple of manufacturers also presented their racing programs for 2019.
Perhaps the biggest story came from Honda, where HRC presented Althea and Moriwaki as their new partners in running their WorldSBK program. After a partnership of three years, and a relationship going back nearly two decades, Ten Kate are out, with the Italians and Japanese taking over.
It wasn’t just Ten Kate: title sponsor Red Bull were also out. The energy drink firm had signed up when Nicky Hayden was with the team, a big name draw for sponsors, and a rider with a long connection to Red Bull.
It was Red Bull who brought in Jake Gagne, the American who never really found his feet in the WorldSBK championship. After two years of poor results, Red Bull withdrew.
“When the music stops you need to grab a seat,” is a kids game, but in the grown-up business of the paddock, it is still just as relevant as if you were at a birthday party.
Unfortunately for Eugene Laverty, he’s been left as one of the last riders chasing a seat for 2019, and with Marco Melandri, Loris Baz, Jordi Torres, and Xavi Fores all also running in circles, the clock is ticking until the music stops for good.
Having thought that he’d be sticking with Shaun Muir Racing for next year, as the team switches to BMW machinery, the Irishman now finds himself on the outside looking in. From feeling secure that he would have a good ride for 2019, he suddenly finds himself staring at limited opportunities.
Our Paddock Pass Podcast colleague Neil Morrison is reporting on Crash.net that Tom Sykes has signed with the Shaun Muir Racing team for the 2019 World Superbike season, and that the team is set to switch machinery from Aprilia to BMW.
Markus Reiterberger will join Sykes on the factory-backed BMW team, as he has the correct passport to appease the German brand.
Of course, all of this came as a surprise to Eugene Laverty, who talked about his surprise at the news, which is set to be announced at next week’s EICMA show in Milan.
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.
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.
With Jonathan Rea’s future firmly set at the Kawasaki Racing Team, the focus this past weekend at Laguna Seca was on the future of his teammate, Tom Sykes.
The Yorkshire man had spared few words in the media for his team and teammate in the days ahead of the California round, and he certainly wasn’t holding too much back once he was at Laguna Seca.
You could almost smell the smoke emanating from Sykes, a result of the bridge that was being burned behind him.
Sykes is 99.9% not riding with Kawasaki for the 2019 World Superbike Championship season, and he finds himself as one of the top picks in the paddock in the rider market.
A return to World Superbike, with the bike that he came so close to winning the championship on – it all appeared like a dream opportunity for Eugene Laverty, to put himself into a position to win the title.
The dream quickly turned to a nightmare, and from the start of winter testing it was clear that major work needed to be done to return the RSV4 to the front.
Moving to the Milwaukee Aprilia squad understandably led to heightened expectations. In their second year in WorldSBK, the former British Superbike champions were expected to make a leap forward.
Teething problems were expected with the switch from BMW to Aprilia, but not the struggles that lay ahead.
“During the winter you can go in the wrong direction with the bike,” commented Laverty. “Unfortunately, that was the case for us.”
“It wasn’t the direction that I would have taken the bike, and that’s why right away from early in the season, I was starting to steer it back to how I rode the bike four years ago. It took us a few rounds to get the right base, and we’ve been trying to progress since then.”
It’s been a turbulent 12 months for Shaun Muir Racing. Their much touted move to World Superbike in 2016, as reigning British Superbike champions, proved to be an exceptionally trying campaign that ended with infighting between the team and its lead rider, Josh Brookes.
Armed with the BMW S1000RR, expectations were high for the British squad, but ultimately they struggled to find a consistent balance during the season, and their relations with the German manufacturer petered out.
For many teams that would have brought dark clouds, but instead SMR may have hit the jackpot. The team launched their 2017 project this week at Jerez, and while beautiful sunshine flooded the Jerez circuit, the team lifted their garage doors to a genuine belief that they can win races.
Their partnership with Aprilia began at the November tests last year, but it was this week that the real fruits of that relationship came to bear.
By last year’s account, Ian Hutchinson is the king of the Isle of Man TT, winning an historic five TT races in 2010. Unfortunately however, the English rider will have to sit out the 2011 IoMTT, as Shaun Muir Racing has confirmed that Hutchinson has not fully recovered from the injuries he sustained from during an incident in a BSB Supersport race, which was held at Silverstone in September 2010. From that incident, the 31 year-old Hutchinson has suffered from a compound fracture of the tibia and fibia, and has had 16 surgeries and skin grafts to treat his injuries.
Moving to the Shaun Muir Racing team, Hutchinson had hoped to defend his five TT wins in this year’s event, but instead will only be able to participate in the Arai Parade Lap with Mick Doohan, Nicky Hayden. and Cal Crutchlow. Hutchinson is now expecting a return to motorcycle racing later in the BSB Supersport season, due largely to his vigorous rehabilitation efforts.