Episode 75 of the Brap Talk motorcycle podcast is out with another “weekly” episode, for your two-wheeled listening pleasure.
In this episode, we tackle a slew of motorcycle-related topics, and look mostly at some of the new machines that are cropping up for the 2022 model year.
The World Supersport field is ripe for change, and that shouldn’t be new or surprising information for anyone following the space.
This is because the 600cc inline-four market has disappeared, especially in Europe, leaving the middleweight class with an uncertain future in racing.
Where there is an absence, there is a vacuum, and the space being left behind by the Japanese supersports is being filled rapidly by European twin and three-cylinder offerings.
In a surprise move, reigning WorldSSP champion Randy Krummenacher has announced that he is splitting with the MV Agusta Reparto Corse team with immediate effect.
The Swiss rider gave only vague reasons for the split. In a press release, he blamed “serious breaches on the part of the company that compromise both the rider’s performance as well as his professionalism, reputation, and personal integrity.”
In the FIM Endurance World Championship, the GMT94 Yamaha team is at the top of the heap. The defending champions, GMT94 Yamaha is only 10 points back in the current season from holding the FIM EWC trophy, with only one race remaining.
One round is all that the French team has, however, as the GMT94 Yamaha team will be calling it quits after this month’s Suzuka 8-Hours race. Needless to say, this is huge news for motorcycle endurance racing fans.
With three world titles under its belt and seventeen FIM EWC race victories on its tally, GMT94 Yamaha will leave the Endurance World Championship for happier hunting grounds in the World Supersport Championship.
As such, the French squad will leave a massive hole behind in EWC, as the GMT94 Yamaha squad tackles the remainder of the 2018 WorldSSP season with Corentin Perolari, before taking on the World Supersport Championship full-time in 2019.
In the World Supersport Championship, one name has dominated the results list for the past decade: Kenan Sofuo?lu. This is because the Turkish rider has posted five championship titles since he entered the class, along with 43 race wins in the WorldSSP class.
And now, the Kawasaki rider is ready to hang up his spurs, announcing that he will retire from motorcycle racing, after the WorldSBK paddock races in Imola this coming weekend.
Never fully recovering from a crash he sustained at Phillip Island during the 2015 season, Sofuo?lu broke his hip during a crash at Magny-Cours last season, and as a result the 33-year-old narrowly missed out on his sixth WorldSSP title.
Sofuo?lu has talked many times about his retirement from racing, and now with his family, he decided it was time to move on from racing motorcycles.