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Pata Yamaha Previews the 2016 World Superbike Season

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The 2016 World Superbike season is rapidly approaching, and Yamaha Racing wants to remind you all that it has entered back into the premier production racing championship.

As such, the Pata Yamaha squad stayed over an extra day at the Jerez Test earlier this month, producing a little preview video of the WSBK season to come.

Asphalt & Rubber was lucky enough to be on-location with the Pata Yamaha team during the filming of this video, which is only an interesting piece of information in that we finally get to see the finished product from the work we witnessed first-hand.

Time will tell if the Yamaha YZF-R1 can be competitive in WSBK, right out of the gate. It certainly looks the business in person, with riders Sylvain Guintoli and Alex Lowes working well with the Crescent Racing squad.

Let the countdown begin for the WSBK season-opener at Phillip Island, on February 28th. It should be a good season.

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Podcast

Paddock Pass Podcast – Episode 17 – Jerez WSBK Test

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The latest episode of the Paddock Pass Podcast comes from the World Superbike paddock, as myself and Steve English attended the WSBK test in Jerez, Spain a couple week ago.

Getting a chance to talk to most of the top teams, Steve and I go through what we can expect to see this season, and how things are shaping up for the boys in the World Superbike.

We hope to be bringing you a number of episodes that will cover the World Superbike Championship throughout the year, so there is something to look forward to in that regard.

The WSBK season starts officially in the last week of February, and we plan on being there starting Race 1.

As always, be sure to follow the Paddock Pass Podcast on Facebook, Twitter and subscribe to the show on iTunes and SoundCloud – we even have an RSS feed for you. If you like the show, we would really appreciate you giving it a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

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Bikes

The 2016 Yamaha YZF-R1 Is Ready for WSBK Duty

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Yamaha is headed back to the World Superbike paddock, and it is not taking any half-measures in doing so. As such, the Japanese manufacturer has retained the talents of Sylvain Guintoli (World Superbike Champion, 2014) and Alex Lowes (British Superbike Champion, 2013), with the highly regarded Crescent Racing running the factory-backed team.

Officially debuting the team today in Spain, along with Yamaha’s other racing programs, the Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team should be a potent package for the pinnacle of production motorcycle racing, and we expect strong results from them, right off the bat.

This is because the new Yamaha YZF-R1 had an entire year of honing at the national level, where in the USA it won both the Superbike and Superstock 1000 classes in the MotoAmerica racing series, and in the UK Josh Brookes took the BSB Championship victory as well.

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Racing

Official: Yamaha Returns to World Superbike for 2016

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An announcement that has been expected for quite a while now, Yamaha is officially returning to the World Superbike Championship for the 2016 season.

The news comes after nearly a season of competition for the Yamaha YZF-R1 in other classes, which has seemingly given Yamaha Motor Europe the confidence to support a factory team in the premier production racing series.

Helping Yamaha in that endeavor will be the experience WSBK outfit of Crescent Racing, who will run the day-to-day operations of the team, while Yamaha Racing develops the racing platform and strategy.

Yamaha’s return is already well-formed, as both Sylvain Guintoli and Alex Lowes will be riding for the factory team. Additionally, Yamaha Racing has already secured PATA as the team’s title sponsor.

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Racing

Saturday at Laguna Seca with Scott Jones

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Ducati Panigale R WSBK 2015 Laguna Seca

It’s great to be back on Asphalt & Rubber again, sitting next to Jensen in a media center at a race track, preparing photos for the A&R readers.

It’s great to be back at a World Superbike race as well, where the atmosphere is more relaxed than MotoGP. The bikes are just as shiny, and apparently you can just mosey down to your local dealer and buy one!

The bike above rolled right off the show room floor, I’m told. It would look great in my garage.

Leon and Ron Haslam Aprilia WSBK 2015 Laguna Seca

There’s also a jovial family atmosphere. Here two generations of Haslam watch Superpole 1, which is more amusing to some than to others.

Chaz Davies Ducati WSBK 2015 Laguna Seca

Chaz Davies took the honors in Superpole 2 on a day that featured two Ducatis at the top of the time sheet.

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MotoGP

MotoGP: Why Hiroshi Aoyama Is Replacing Dani Pedrosa

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Dani Pedrosa’s announcement after the Qatar Grand Prix that he would be withdrawing from racing to seek urgent treatment for arm pump immediately triggered an explosion of speculation over who might replace the Spaniard during his absence.

Fans and pundits offered a barrage of possible names to take Pedrosa’s place: Casey Stoner, Cal Crutchlow, Michael van der Mark, Jack Miller, Nicky Hayden.

Coming as it did just before April Fool’s day, it even triggered a spate of hoax stories: Casey Stoner, Mick Doohan, Alex Marquez, and Fabio Quartararo were all offered in jest.

Hiroshi Aoyama was always going to be the man to replace Pedrosa, however. For a range of reasons, Aoyama is the only reasonable candidate to take the place of Pedrosa in the short term, all the other names being bandied about subject to sponsor conflicts, race conflicts, contractual obligations or just plain unwillingness.

Here’s a rundown of why Aoayama got the call, and the others didn’t.

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WSBK

WSBK: Musical Chairs – Rea to Kawasaki, Guintoli to Honda

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The end of the 2014 World Superbike championship, wrapped up last night at Qatar, has triggered a series of official rider announcements for 2015.

Two of the most anticipated announcements were made on Monday, with official confirmation that Jonathan Rea would be leaving Pata Honda to join the Kawasaki Racing Team in World Superbikes, while the seat he is vacating at the Ten Kate Pata Honda team will be filled by newly-crowned 2014 World Superbike champion Sylvain Guintoli.

Rea will line up alongside Tom Sykes, while Guintoli will be teammate to World Supersport champion Michael van der Mark.

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Racing

Team Orders: Is Motorcycle Racing a Team Sport?

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In a few hours time, we will know who will be the 2014 World Superbike champion. Tom Sykes leads Sylvain Guintoli by 12 points going into the final two races at Qatar. With 50 points up for grabs, the title race is still completely open, and in a series as close as World Superbikes has been this year, anything could happen.

What both Sykes and Guintoli need are help from their teammates. Guintoli most of all: if the Frenchman is to be champion, he will need someone, such as his Aprilia teammate Marco Melandri, to get in between him and the Kawasaki of Sykes.

Sykes, on the other hand, can wrap up the title by winning both races, or at least finishing ahead of Guintoli. If he can’t finish ahead of the Frenchman, then he will hope that his teammate Loris Baz can assist.

As loyal teammates, surely Melandri and Baz will be happy to help? That was only partially the case at the last round in Magny-Cours. In race one, Melandri theatrically waved Guintoli past and into the lead, making it patently obvious that victory was Melandri’s to dispense as he saw fit, and he was prepared to allow his teammate to win this time.

Further back, Baz did the same same for Sykes, though without making quite as much of a song and dance about it as Melandri did.

Race two was a different affair. Once again, Melandri led, and could grant victory to Guintoli if he wanted to. He chose not to, taking the win – despite his pit board making the feelings of his team very clear indeed, for the second race in a row – and taking 5 precious points from Guintoli.

If Melandri had obeyed team orders and moved over, then Guintoli would have trailed Sykes by 7 points instead of 12. That would put Guintoli’s destiny in his own hands: win both races, and it would not matter what Sykes did.

Now, Guintoli needs help, he needs someone between him and the Englishman. Will his teammate come to his rescue this time? Will the Aprilia WSBK team issue team orders again, commanding Melandri to serve the cause of Guintoli’s championship challenge? At the core of this is a much bigger question: Is motorcycle racing a team sport?

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Bikes

Photos: Aprilia’s World Superbike “Silver Fireball” Livery

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If you watched this weekend’s World Superbike racing at Phillip Island, you may have noticed that Aprilia Racing is sporting some new paint on the bikes for Sylvain Guintoli and Marco Melandri.

The Italian factory calls the metallic paint job “Silver Fireball” and while some may long for the classic red and black livery scheme, we have to say, we are smitten with the modern look.

While the Aprilia RSV4 Factory SBK is getting a bit long in the tooth, the potent WSBK race bike is still a formidable weapon, especially in the hands of these two talented riders.

We won’t spoil the races at Phillip Island for you (Race 1 here, & Race 2 here), but even with the new rules in place for WSBK this year, Aprilia Racing has coaxed a few more ponies out of the 999cc V4 engine, without compromising reliability.

2014 is shaping up to be a good season in World Superbike, and we can expect to see Aprilia updating its road bike platform in the next year or two.

Until then though, enjoy the high-resolution photos of the 2014 Aprilia RSV4 Factory WSBK race bike.

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