It has been a busy week for racing, with the World Superbike season opener at Phillip Island followed by the MotoGP test at Sepang, including the extra day of testing on Michelins.
There has been a lot of news, but there have been one or two things we may have missed, so again here’s our weekly round-up of racing news.
There is a famous quote, often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, that says “there are only three sports: motor-racing, bull-fighting, and mountaineering. The rest are just games.” Watching and shooting the season opener of World Superbikes track-side at Phillip Island, I couldn’t agree more.
Jonny Rea, Leon Haslam, and Chaz Davies put on a show that rose and fell like the crescnedos in a beautiful piece of music. It was more than just racing, it was a race that had a heart and a beat. Emotional just about starts to describe it. It was a privilege to capture some of the action. Hope you enjoy the images.
Almost without realizing it, we find ourselves in the midst of a glut of motorcycle racing action. For 11 days, bikes and teams are testing, racing, and being introduced to the public at large. On Monday and Tuesday, the World Superbike teams had their last test of the pre-season at Phillip Island.
From Tuesday to Thursday, the Moto2 and Moto3 teams are testing at Jerez. On Friday, the 2015 World Superbike season gets underway Phillip Island, culminating in the races on Sunday, featuring shock substitute Troy Bayliss.
Then, from Monday, MotoGP returns for three days of testing at Sepang, followed by an extra day with Michelin tires, with the factory riders at the helm.
In between, we have seen the launch of the Ducati Desmosedici GP15, the CWM LCR Honda team is set to be launched on Wednesday, and there is even a presentation here in Holland by Eurosport, in which they will reveal their plans for MotoGP coverage in The Netherlands for 2015.
There is so much going on that there are barely enough hours in the day to actually write about it. Enjoy the cornucopia while you can.
Australian World Superbike fans are in for a very special treat this weekend, as Troy Bayliss is confirmed to be Davide Giugliano’s replacement at the WSBK season-opener at Phillip Island, after the Italian fractured two vertebrae during a crash earlier this week.
Ducati Corse initially did not plan to replace Giugliano at the Australian round, but instead the Italian company decided to fullfill every Aussie racing fan’s wet dream, and put the former WSBK Champion on the seat of the Ducati 1199 Panigale RS15.
The move comes after Troy Bayliss requested to ride at the Australian event, which is the 25th anniversary of World Superbikes at Phillip Island.
Bad news for Ducati Corse WSBK fans, as Davide Giugliano has been confirmed to miss the World Superbike opening round at Phillip Island this weekend.
The news comes as a result of the Italian fracturing his L1 and L2 vertebrae in a crash at Turn 11 on the Australian track during a testing session.
The news is especially unfortunate as Giugliano had shown good pace on the Ducati Panigale RS15 through-out testing, and the Italian has shown that Phillip Island is one of the tracks he excels at in racing conditions.
This is the first in a series of weekly round ups of motorcycle racing news from around the world. Every Wednesday, we will bring a brief summary of stories that did not warrant a full article of their own. So here are some stories you may have missed, for the week preceding February 11th, 2015.
The World Superbike calendar has been reduced to 13 events. The Russian round of WSBK, scheduled to be held at the Moscow Raceway on July 5th has been canceled, after the event organizer, YMS Promotion, failed to provide the contract guarantees required by the contract.
As a further consequence, the Yakhnich Motorsport Team have also lost their slot on the 2015 World Supersport grid, which was tied in with the Russian round.
The cancellation of the Russian round did not come as a surprise. The Russian WSBK round is a legacy of the last years of Infront running the series.
At the last meeting of the Superbike Commission, the body which makes the rules for the World Superbike series, representatives of Dorna, the FIM and the factories agreed a number of measures which provide yet another step on the path to the future of the series.
There were a couple of minor technical updates, and two changes which point the way to the series’ long term future.
The changes to the technical regulations were relatively simple. The balancing rules, aimed at allowing different engine designs to be competitive against each other, received a number of minor tweaks resulting from the fact that those rules will now be carried on from one season to the next.
In practice, this means that results for either twins or fours will be carried over between seasons, creating a rolling balancing scoreboard, which should create a better balance between fours and twins.
The other change to the technical rules allow a manufacturer to revert to their 2014 electronics for the first two races of 2015, should the 2015 electronics cause them problems.
Basically, this will give the teams a fallback position and give them a little more time to develop the electronics. As the first two rounds are in Australia and Thailand, the risk of struggling with a system which is not completely ready to race during a period when it is impossible to test has been reduced.
The changes to the sporting regulations are more interesting, and point the way to the future of the series.
Are you still racking your brain over what to get that special motorcyclist in your life for Christmas (or Chanukah, for our Jewish readers)? Was the Paul Bird Motorsports MotoGP race bikes that are for sale a bit too spendy for your holiday budget?
Then we have a more budget friend proposition for you: the Bimota BB3 WSBK-Spec race bikes that were raced by Team Alstare in the 2014 World Superbike Championship.
Despite an abysmal year in the World Superbike Championship last season, Team Hero EBR will return to the WSBK paddock for 2015. The team’s return is perhaps in name only, as major changes have been made to EBR’s WSBK presence, which will continue to be based out of Italy.
Most notable is Team Hero EBR’s new riders — Larry Pegram and Niccolo Canepa — with Pegram having double-duties, as he will act as the Team Manager in charge of the Pegram Racing crew, which will take over running the Team Hero EBR program.
Good news for females riders in the European Union, as we hear that the FIM Women’s European Cup has been folded into the European Junior Cup, which runs alongside the World Superbike Championship.
Running alongside the EJC as its own class, young female riders won’t have to decide between the two series, as they will score points in both. This relieves young ladies from having to choose between racing with just the girls, or the boys on an equal playing field…as now they will be doing both.