The 2021 WorldSBK calendar has been updated once again in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After delaying the Australian round provisionally until the end of the season, the Phillip Island event has now been postponed until 2022. And a race in the Czech Republic, in Most, has been added in the middle of the calendar.
WorldSBK’s 2021 season is off to a rocky start, as we get word that the season-opener at Phillip Island has been postponed due to coronavirus concerns.
At the heart of the issue is the current status of Australia with its coronavirus outbreak, as the antipodes are slowly reopening their country after successfully tackling the pandemic.
UPDATE: The 2021 Ducati Multistrada V4 has officially debuted. Read about it here.
The eagle eyes at Motorcycle.com have spotted an early look at the finalized version of the Ducati Multistrada V4, ahead of the bike’s debut tomorrow morning.
As you can see from the photos above, the resolution is a bit lacking, but the documents that go along with those photos do provide us with some insights.
The coronavirus has struck another blow to the MotoGP Championship calendar for 2020, with news today that the British GP round at Silverstone, as well as the Australian GP round at Phillip Island have been canceled.
Some shocking news from down under, as former AMA Pro Superbike champion Mat Mladin has been arrested and charged for a variety of sex crimes with a child.
The news comes from Australia’s Daily Telegraph – which we feel obligated to say is considered the least trustworthy major news outlet in Australia – and outlines several different crimes that Mladin is accused of committing.
Episode 133 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one comes to us again from the WorldSBK paddock, as Steve English and Gordon Ritchie talk about the season-opening round at Phillip Island.
A special early episode (we’ll have another show for you on Thursday, of course), the guys talk about the exciting racing action from Australia, which saw some surprise finishes and promises good things for the season ahead.
The show also includes snippets of audio from riders, including Alex Lowes, Scott Redding, and Toprak Razgatlıoğlu.
Episode 132 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one comes to us from the WorldSBK paddock, as Steve English and Gordon Ritchie join us from Phillip Island, just ahead of the season-opening round.
As you would expect, the duo catches us up on the pre-season happenings in the production class, and give us a preview of things to come from the Australian round.
Episode 122 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one is a MotoGP show, as we catch back up with the premier class on its flyaway rounds at Japan, Malaysia, and Australia.
As such, this means that we see Neil Morrison and David Emmett on the mics, as they are our MotoGP Championship reporting duo for the 2019 season.
As you can imagine, there is no shortage of things for them to talk about, especially as we head into the final round of the season, at Valencia.
The elements prevailed in the end. The weather gods threw rain and wind at the Phillip Island circuit on Friday, and after showing their power to pose real peril to the riders, the riders and Dorna surrendered to a power greater than them.
The very strong gusting wind was just too dangerous to make riding at the Australian circuit safe.
Miguel Oliveira’s crash was the last straw. The Red Bull KTM Tech3 rider was caught out by the changing wind in the early part of FP4, got pushed wide on the entry to the terrifyingly fast first corner, and took a massive tumble through the gravel.
It looked like a huge crash, and Oliveira was very lucky to come away with no broken bones, though he had heavy bruising on his arm and hand.
“I was slipstreaming Zarco and at that point I was a little bit more close to the left side of the track,” Oliveira said.
“And from the morning to the afternoon the wind just completely changed the way and was really sideways going onto the straight. I rolled off to let Johann pass and when I braked, I braked completely sideways and the wind just pushed me out of the track.”
Strong winds have forced Dorna to cancel qualifying for the MotoGP class at Phillip Island.
Wind with gusts of over 70km/h made conditions impossible during FP4, and after Miguel Oliveira suffered a massive crash at Turn 1, blown off line and onto the grass, an impromptu meeting of the Safety Commission voted to cancel qualifying, deeming it too dangerous to continue.
Four seasons in one day. That’s how they describe the weather at Phillip Island, and that’s exactly what MotoGP got on Friday. Jack Miller’s day summed up conditions nicely. “It was quite windy early as the doors were nearly blown off my house,” the Pramac Ducati rider said.
“Then it started calming down, then bucketing down, and believe it or not I was sitting out having a coffee at 6:30 this morning in a t-shirt as it was 18 or 19 degrees and then as I was driving to my parents’ house the temperature started going down and down and then the rain came in. I thought it would be set in for the day but it managed to clear up this afternoon and we managed to get on the slick tires.”
In the end, the MotoGP riders got three session in different conditions. FP1 was cold, wet, and blustery. FP2 was warm, dry, and fairly sunny. And the special tire test session, to put the final touch on the new construction rear tire Michelin wants to introduce in 2020 was cooler, with temperatures dropping.
Those changing conditions had a fairly significant impact. First, it meant the MotoGP teams were trying to cram an entire weekend’s worth of setup work and tire testing into 35 minutes, followed by chasing a time for Q2 in the final 10 minutes.
Even Marc Márquez, who never stresses about chasing a time for Q2, stuck in a soft tire in pursuit of a quick lap, nearly losing out when he found his teammate Jorge Lorenzo sitting on the line through the final two corners.