v19.02 FEATURING
WORLDSBK ROUND 02 CHAZ DAVIES SANDRO CORTESE BSB TESTING BURIRAM SCOOTER RACING and more.
SBK Journal | version 19.02 The 20:19 Bautista Express remains on schedule. WorldSBK round two landed in the hot and steamy Thai countryside at Chang International Circuit in Buriram. Whilst Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes did their best to derail him, it was full steam ahead for the Panigale pilot on the way to six wins on the trot. Chaz Davies is not firing on all V4 cylinders at the moment and Buriram was another frustrating weekend for the Welshman. Yamaha’s rookie Sandro Cortese on the other hand was still impressing on the GRT Racing R1, having moved up from the WorldSSP class. As usual it was hot in Thailand, very hot. We look at the various methods the riders use to keep cool on the weekend. Not to be outdone by the Superbike paddock, the locals have their own spectacular event on a Friday where they don their best Levi’s and Tigers and take to the dragstrip in a ‘run what you brung’ frenzy of scooter racing. Whilst the WorldSBK guys were racing in Thailand, the British Superbike teams were gearing up for their season with back to back tests at Monteblanco in Spain and Portimao in Portugal. BikeSportNews editor David Miller gives us the low down on what to expect in 2019 with Tim Keeton of Impact Images on the lenses, Feel free to share, of course, via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
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After a spirited performance in Australia, scoring a brace of fourth places, Alex Lowes stepped up to the podium in Thailand with a trio of thirds.
The 20:19 Baustista Express leaving Platform 1 with the top step of the podium its final destination.
Health and Safety Officers look away now. drag racing night in Buriram.
Friday night is
Laying it all on the track. Scott Redding got all the life out of his tyres, knee and elbow sliders at the BSB tests in Spain and Portugal.
Deja vu. A year ago Eugene Laverty crashed heavily at Buriram and broke his pelvis. Thankfully after a similarly brutal crash he was relatively unscathed.
Pimp my van. a job to do.
There is no harm in looking good when you have
Chaz Davies is currently trailing in the shadow of his team-mate Alvaro Bautista. The Welshman missed crucial track time at the WorldSBK tests in November and January, suffering ongoing problems with a back injury sustained in the crash with Jonathan Rea at Misano in 2017. He endured a frustrating time in Thailand. He was just inside the top ten in the free practice sessions and Superpole qualifying, generally around a second off the pace. In race one he finished down in 15th place, 54 seconds behind Bautista. He faired slightly better in the Superpole race, finishing eighth, but a ‘technical problem’ forced him to retire from race two. Between Thailand and the next round at Motorland Aragon the Ducati team have spent two days testing at the Spanish circuit. It’s a venue that Davies has performed well at in the past, scoring a double WorldSBK victory on the underperforming BMW in 2013. Time will tell if the 2011 WorldSSP Champion can get to grips with the Panigale V4 but for now he finds himself in an unfamiliar position in the overall standings down in 11th place. GB
The 2018 WorldSSP Champion Sandro Cortese stepped up to the top class this year with the GRT Yamaha squad, alongside veteran Marco Melandri. Whilst they are classed as an independent team in the championship GRT are using the same factory R1 race machines as the Pata Yamaha team. The 29 year old German came to the WorldSBK paddock from Moto2, having raced in the MotoGP paddock since the age of 15. His crowning achievement was to win the inaugural Moto3 Championship in 2012. His pedigree as a racer is therefore not in doubt but he has never raced anything more than a 600cc machine. SBK Jourmal spoke to him during the pre-season testing and he admitted that it was a challenge to be riding the ‘big’ bike but he was relishing it and felt he wasn’t far away from competing with Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark on the Pata machines. In Australia he had a trio of seventh places, lapping in the low 1m 32s, three or four tenths of the pace of Lowes and VD Mark. Buriram proved a little tougher, being a track he hadn’t ridden previously. His best position was once again seventh but in his post-race comments he expressed a degree of satisfaction at the end of the weekend. GB
BSB’s Regeneration Game As the curtain came down on last year’s Bennetts British Superbike season, doom-mongers, naysayers and keyboard warriors predicted the departure of Leon Haslam and Jake Dixon spelled the end. With the mid-season loss of six-time champion Shane Byrne through a testing crash, BSB 2019 needed something a bit special to keep up a long tradition of being the best domestic Superbike series in the world. Step forward Ducati with the - albeit rev-limited - Panigale V4R. MotoGP exile Scott Redding proved those of an internet-argument disposition entirely wrong by topping the Monteblanco test and then setting the second-fastest time at Portimao. Be Wiser Ducati team-mate and 2015 champion Josh Brookes was not too far behind and Tommy Bridewell, on the Oxford Ducati, put three V4Rs in the top five. Not bad for a new bike with zero development. Flies in the Bologna ointment came in the shape of Honda’s Xavi Fores and Jason O’Halloran – looking more at home on the McAMS Yamaha Brookes stepped off than his countryman ever did – as he pipped Redding to the Portimao bragging rights. The Wollongong rider went through two frame changes over the course of five days official testing but found a setting that works over one lap and 15. Fores took full advantage of his circuit knowledge to put in consistent, fast times but what the Spaniard will make of Knockhill is anyone’s guess. Added to the mix for 2019 are the tenacious Taz Mackenzie, who is a race winner for sure, and Glenn Irwin who takes over at Quattro Kawasaki where Leon Haslam left off. An official test at Silverstone on April 9 will be the last chance to get shit done before it’s curtain up at the same venue over the Easter bank holiday, April 19-21, and BSB moves into another season where anything can, and probably will, happen… DM
Australian Ben Currie moves into the Kawasaki-backed Quattro JG team for 2019 and will have Glenn Irwin as team-mate. The team are reigning champions after guiding Leon Haslam to his long-awaited title last year. There’s no pressure on the youngster as it’s his first season in the top league but you can bet boss Big Jack Valentine has some targets set. DM
Bradley Ray suffered the Suzuka 8 Hour effect in 2018. After a sterling start to the season a double win at Donington Park - the Buildbase Suzuki man slowly slipped off the pace, with front-end troubles cited as the cause. Testing for Japanese Yoshimura Suzuki superbike team on a different-spec GSX-R equipped with Bridgestone tyres compounded the problems as he slipped out of Showdown contention but Ray is talented and resilient. Expect more this year. DM
Termignoni exhausted A member of the Termignoni manufacturing team told Oxford Ducati owner Steve Moore that Britain has got it all the wrong way round. “In Europe,’” he told Wilf, for this is how Moore is known, “we have quiet exhausts for the road and loud ones for the track. In Britain it seems to be the other way around.” The exhaust has had to be designed and crafted for just the Be Wiser team – which has Scott Redding and Josh Brookes twisting the grips – and Moore’s mob – with Tommy Bridewell riding – because the WorldSBK-spec systems are way too loud for the more stringent UK noise police. It is not, as Moore admits, the prettiest thing ever to grace a Ducati but on the flip side this is racing, not Miss World… DM
Everywhere you look in Thailand there are scooters. It’s the daily transport for a huge proportion of the population but strap an engine between some wheels and people will always want to race. Friday night in Buriram is drag night, and that has nothing to do with the usual Thai connotations. It probably happens in every big town in Thailand where the local kids gather on a Friday night and race their, sometimes highly modified, scooters down the city’s main road. Buriram is no different and in the past it caused havoc and came with the sad inevitably of injuries and, even worse, loss of life. When local politicain Newin Chidchob took over the Provincial Electricity Authority’s football club, moved them to Buriram and renamed them Buriram United, he embarked on the ambitious project of developing a 30,000 capacity football stadium and world class motor racing ciruit. The kids, however, were still racing round town on their scooters at the weekend. Chidchob found a solution in the vast amount of open space he had around the football stadium and race track and built a drag strip for the local hot shots. Every Friday night they gather in a cacophony of two stroke engines and a cloud of methonol fumes to twist and go at break-neck speeds. For the WorldSBK paddock it has become a tradition to get finished with work in the paddock as early as possible and head out to watch the mayhem. In the years since the championship started visiting Buriram the local crowds have dimished but it is still a great spectacle nonetheless. GB
GRID PASS
GRID PASS
SBKink
The temperature at Buriram reached almost 40 degrees celcius on race day. The track itself got up to a blistering 57 degrees. Such high temperatures are hard to bear for most people, but wrapping yourself in race leathers, boots, gloves and a crash helmet, for the majority of the day, must have been extreme. GRT Yamaha rider, Sandro Cortese, explained that whilst you are moving on the bike, the heat isn’t that bad. Noticeable but not impossible. The major issues start as soon as you stop, that’s when your body temperature soars and you really feel uncomfortable. Each rider has their own way of keeping cool but most use a plunge pool full of ice cold water to lower their body temperature as soon as they come off the bike. They look like they are just relaxing but this is an essential part of the riders’ recovery on such a weekend. Keeping cool before the race is a little more challenging. Alpinestars supply their riders with a cooling vest, filled with ice, that they can wear whilst sitting on the grid. Most will seek some shade with a cold wet towel over their head and a fan. There is also a product in the far east, cooling spray, that comes in a aerosol and when sprayed on the skin, has an instant cooling effect. All of that is left behind however when the lights go out and things really hot up out on track. JM
SBK Journal is Published by Slipstream Media Ltd, PO Box 26532, Glasgow, G74 9FB No part of this publication may be reproduced in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Slipstream Media Ltd. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the facts and the data contained in this publication, no responsibility can be accepted by Slipstream Media Ltd or any of the contributors for error or ommissions, or their consequences. ©Slipstream Media Ltd Photography: Graeme Brown Jamie Morris Vaclav Duska Jnr Tim Keeton Images ©geebeeimages (WorldSBK) ©impactimages (BSB) Special thanks to David Miller for top quality reading bits and Kenny Pryde with help on sub editing. Design and Layout: Graeme Brown Jamie Morris Corey J. Coulter v19.02 | 03.19
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Coming Next...... After a brief hiatus, Superbike racing gets into full swing in the next few weeks. WorldSBK returns to Europe with back to back races at Motorland Aragon and The Cathedral of Speed, Assen. The focus then changes to Britain with round one of BSB at Silverstone. SBK Journal will be at all events and will bring you the inside track on the action. We will speak to Leon Camier and get his thoughts on life in the new HRC WorldSBK set up. Will Kawasaki close the gap to Bautista? We will go behind the scenes in the team and get the low down on their 2019 challenge, SBKink will get under the skin of one of the WorldSBK stars and find out what the story is behind their tattoos. How will BSB shake up with MotoGP and WorldSBK refugees Scott Redding and Xavi Fores going head to head with the established BSB stars? All that and more in the next issue in April.