2019 WSBK mid-season review - Introduction
Words: Mike Ryan
Photos: 2SNAP - courtesy of IRPR, Russell Colvin, WorldSBK media
‘How did that happen?’ is the question that Alvaro Bautista was surely asking himself as he entered the summer break for this year’s Motul FIM Superbike World Championship. The WSBK series rookie turned the established order on its head at the start of the season, winning the opening four rounds.
At that point, the question most observers were asking was not ‘Would Bautista win the championship?’, but ‘How much would he win it by?’, such was the diminutive Spaniard’s dominance.
But now, nine rounds down, it seems that “normal services” have been resumed. By “normal”, we mean that Jonathan Rea, WSBK champion for the past four years, leads the championship and with four rounds remaining, is a strong possibility to take a history-making fifth crown.
So, how did such an extreme turnaround come to be? It all started before this year’s season even got underway.
Fresh Blood, Familiar Faces
Of course, Bautista was the highest-profile addition to the WSBK field this year. The 34-year-old Spaniard signed with Aruba.it Ducati in August, 2018, replacing Marco Melandri in the factory Ducati WSBK team and arriving after 16 full seasons of Grand Prix competition, including the past nine years in MotoGP.
Spending most of his time in satellite teams or on development machinery, Bautista didn’t have much to show for his near-decade in MotoGP - a trio of podium finishes (the last in 2014) and a fifth in the championship being his best result.
As well as a new series, Bautista had a new bike to contend with, as Ducati were debuting their Panigale V4 R this season – the V4 reinvention of their long-serving L-twin.
Tests of the new bike at the end of 2018 were positive, but in the pre-season test at Phillip Island, Bautista topped the timesheets on both days - a real shot across the bows of the established Kawasaki Racing Team led by Jonathan Rea.
In that team, Tom Sykes was out and Leon Haslam was in. Unlike Bautista, Haslam has a lot of history in World Superbikes, first racing in the category way back in 2003 and running full seasons from 2009 to 2015. In that time, he accrued five race wins and was championship runner-up in 2010. In the 2019 Kawasaki ZX-10RR, Haslam had arguably the best bike in the WSBK paddock, so had no excuses if he didn’t perform.
For Rea’s former team mate Sykes, a fractious 2018 season saw him part ways with Kawasaki, but no replacement ride was locked in until November, when it was announced that BMW Motorrad would be returning to World Superbikes with their reinvented S 1000 RR. The team would run as a factory outfit, with day-to-day operations managed by the experienced Shaun Muir Racing team that handled Aprilia’s WSBK operations in 2017 and 2018.
With the full weight of BMW Motorrad behind him, Sykes wouldn’t be short of resources, but the new S 1000 RR was an unproven package in WSBK race trim. Some positives came from a second-fastest time in the final pre-season test, though, so Sykes was cautiously confident.
Alongside Sykes in the factory BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team would be Markus Reiterberger, Last year’s FIM European Superstock 1000 Champion, 24-year-old Reiterberger is no stranger to the WSBK paddock, having raced a full season in 2016 and partial campaigns before and since. However, a best WSBK race result of fifth meant that Reiterberger was certainly the No.2 rider to Sykes, who has 34 race wins and the 2013 championship in his pocket.
The other notable arrival this season was Sandro Cortese. The German won last year’s World Supersport championship – as a rookie - with GRT Yamaha. When that team decided to step up to WSBK this year, Cortese came with them. Being a satellite squad, GRT Yamaha didn’t have the same sort of resources as the factory Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team, but they did have experience in Marco Melandri, who signed with the squad as their second rider after losing his seat in the factory Ducati team to Bautista.
After a tough 2018 (and an even tougher 2017), Honda re-organised their WSBK operations for the 2019 season, putting HRC in charge, adding Moriwaki involvement and bringing in Althea Racing to run operations.
The CBR1000RR has been uncompetitive in recent seasons, so HRC’s involvement was expected to bring results. As were its riders, Leon Camier and Ryuichi Kiyonari.
A Honda rider hasn’t won the WSBK championship since 2007, so the appointment of Kiyonari seemed an unusual step. Replacing American Jake Gagne in the factory Moriwaki Althea Honda Team, Kiyonari was undoubtedly experienced (and successful in British Superbikes) but last raced a full WSBK season in 2009. For Camier, there’d be pressure in his second season on the Honda after a solid but unremarkable 2018.
Most of the rest of the WSBK field for 2019 was made up of familiar faces, like Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Ducati), Toprak Razgatlioglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing), Leandro Mercado (Orelac Racing Verdnatura Kawasaki), Jordi Torres (Team Pedercini Racing Kawasaki) and Eugene Laverty (Team Goeleven Ducati).
With so many riders either returning to the series or switching teams, the only unaltered squad amongst the front runners was Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team, which retained riders Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark, both of whom scored their first WSBK race wins in 2018 and finished the championship in sixth and third place, respectively.
Awesome Threesome
Tinkering with the race format has become something of a tradition for WSBK organisers in recent years and they got the spanners out again for the 2019 season, dropping one of the Free Practice sessions, modifying Superpole and adding a third race to each round’s programme.
The standard two races would remain unchanged in duration and position on the race schedule (Race 1 on Saturday afternoon, Race 2 on Sunday afternoon), but a third race – the Tissot Superpole Race – would now feature on the Sunday morning.
In a system that took most observers some time to get their head around, the grid for Race 1 would also set the starting order for the Tissot Superpole Race, which would be a sprint format of only 10 laps. However, the finishing order of that sprint race would set the grid for the first nine positions of Sunday’s second main race.
After splitting the race format over two days, the addition of this third race was designed to add a bit more bang-for-buck for fans who could only attend on Sundays.
Being a sprint format, the Tissot Superpole Race did raise concerns amongst observers that riders of lesser ability would ride recklessly, as the short format removed the need for tyre conservation and race management.
A less radical programme change was the removal of the fourth Free Practice (FP) session to allow for the new Superpole format.
Previously, Superpole was held in two parts, with the lower tier riders running a hot lap in ‘Superpole 1’. The fastest two from this group would then qualify to ‘Superpole 2’, joining the fastest ten from the FP sessions. The flying lap times from this second Superpole session would set the grid for Race 1.
This year, all riders run in a single Superpole session to determine the grid. Removing the situation where some riders rode Superpole twice, the new format is arguably fairer and expected to make little difference to grid positions – fast guys will still be fast and every rider has the chance to rise or fall in their Superpole lap.
Finally, technical rules were tweaked to limit the use of wings and enforce minimum tyre pressures, amongst other changes, with rev limits adjusted, too.
Ducati was the main beneficiary of this, with their new Panigale V4 R able to rev out to 16,350 rpm maximum. The BMW S 1000 RR was set at 14,900, as was Suzuki’s GSX-R1000, even though no team is running one this year. Kawasaki gained 500 rpm to a maximum of 14,600 rpm, with Yamaha at 14,700 and Honda at 14,550. As in past WSBK seasons, these maximum rev limits can be adjusted should one manufacturer dominate the results.
With new faces, new teams, new rules and a new race weekend format, the 2019 World Superbike season got underway at Phillip Island in February…
WSBK action returns on 6-8 September with the Portuguese round at Portimao, followed by Magny Cours on 27-29 September and San Juan Villicum in Argentina on 11-13 October before the series wraps up at Losail, Qatar on 24-26 October.
