Round 6 of the 2018 Superbike World Championship saw Michael van der Mark make history, and Toprak Razgatl?oglu claim a first career podium.
It was the shot in the arm the series needed, and after great racing across all four classes, there is a renewed optimism within the paddock.
Jonathan Rea was the man that ended Tom Sykes’ winning streak at Donington Park. The reigning WorldSBK champion snapped a nine-race streak for Sykes by winning Race 2 at the British round, and he’s excited ahead of his home round.
“Donington is a circuit of two halves,” said Rea. “Sector 1 and 2 are very flowing, and the final sector is very stop and start.”
“It’s very difficult to find the right setup, and you’re always making a compromise. Sometimes I have had a setting that is great for the first halfm and other times I’ve set the bike up for the final sector.”
“It really depends on what you need to do with the bike you have. You need to find a compromise between stability and agility, but it’s a very satisfying track to get right.
To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. Going up against Kenan Sofuo?lu was no easy matter for the top riders in World Supersport, but it was necessary if you were going to move on from the feeder class.
Kenan Sofuo?lu was the benchmark upon which every WorldSSP rider was judged. If you wanted to move from the class to race a superbike or a grand prix machine, you needed to prove you could beat Sofuo?lu.
As the dominant force of the class his rivals never underestimated the challenge they faced. To mark Kenan’s retirement from motorcycle racing, we reached out to his fiercest competitors to see what they had to say about competing against the Turkish rider.
Round 6 of the 2018 WorldSBK Championship sees the paddock head for the home of Superbikes: Donington Park. The British circuit hosted the first ever round of the championship in 1988, and since then the affinity for superbike racing in the UK has only continued to grow.
The spectacular, flowing track has been the canvas for some of the most incredible moments in the history of the class, but will this weekend be remembered in the same light?
Having equalled Carl Fogarty’s WorldSBK win-record at Imola, Jonathan Rea’s legacy is now firmly in his own hands. The Northern Irishman said afterwards that while he is the equal of Foggy in terms of victories, he still has some way to go before being his equal; it will take winning a fourth title to do so.
The Kawasaki rider sat down in Italy to talk about his place in racing history, and about the luck of the draw in Irish racing.
“My dad raced, and I always respected what he did,” said Rea. “I really understand that now because Jake looks up to me so much, and I was the same when I was his age.”
“My dad was my hero, he always made me feel a part of it, and I could see how winning made him feel. I was too young to remember his racing, but recently Duke sent me footage of his 1989 250 TT win, and he flat-out beat Hizzy and Foggy in that race.”
Following his double victory at Imola, Jonathan Rea has laid the foundation for his fourth consecutive WorldSBK title.
Jonathan Rea’s 59th WorldSBK victory saw the Northern Irishman join Carl Fogarty as the most successful rider in WorldSBK history. The triple champion was however quick to point out that winning races is good, but winning championships is better.
Still trailing Foggy by one title there is now a sense of inevitability that Rea will add to his title haul. The previous two years had seen Chaz Davies do the double at Imola, but he had no answers for Rea over the weekend.
The Kawasakis were the class of the field, but it was Rea who came out on top following a tough weekend for the Ducati rider, and with a 47-point advantage the title race is now firmly in Rea’s hands.
An exhibition of Nicky Hayden photographs, by the Italian photographer Mirco Lazzari, opened during the Imola WorldSBK round, aptly named “A Million Dollar Smile”.
With 69 photographs depicting the American’s international career, it provided a reminder to fans of what made the Kentucky Kid so popular.
For Lazzari, the challenge of finding the correct pictures was a trying time ,with weeks spent to ensure he struck the right chord, as the first anniversary of Hayden’s death approaches.
“I wanted to create an exhibition for Nicky, and it was very emotional because Nicky was a rider that gave all of us a lot of emotions,” said Lazzari. “He meant a lot to so many fans and to the sport, so I wanted to do this exhibition because he is missed by so many people.”
Imola is one of the most historic circuits in the world. Tamburello, Acque Minerali, and Rivazza are corner names etched into the fiber of the sport, and with the circuit named after Enzo Ferrari’s son, the emotion of Imola is always bubbling away just under the surface.
For a long time, Eugene Laverty didn’t feel at home at this twisting and technical circuit, but over the last ten years he has been able to scratch at the surface and unlock the key to a fast time around this 4.936km circuit.
“Imola is a very technical circuit and it’s a real challenge to learn it,” said Laverty. “It took me a long time to figure out some of the secrets of it, and even when I was racing here on the Yamaha Superbike, after a few years of Supersport, I was still struggling.”
“The most important thing is to be white line to white line because there’s no ‘natural corners.’ The straights are so short that everything leads into one another and it’s a real challenge to learn the details of Imola.”
With two Supersport podiums and a WorldSBK rostrum, Laverty understands what’s needed, but for this weekend, recovering from an injury, he’ll face an uphill task.
The Italian round of the WorldSBK season marks the end of the opening third of the season, but it’s hard to see how it marks the end of Chaz Davies’ dominance at the Imola circuit.
The Welshman has been a wizard around the technical circuit in recent years, and been unbeatable. Having fallen 30 points adrift of Jonathan Rea in the standings, he will know that this weekend it is crucial to chip into the Northern Irishman’s title lead.