The start of the 2021 WorldSBK season will have to wait for another two weeks.
The Dutch round of WorldSBK, scheduled to take place at the TT Circuit Assen from April 23-25th, has been pushed back to July 23-25th due to COVID-19 restrictions. The season will now start at Estoril, on the weekend of May 9th.
Rain forced the WorldSBK teams assembled at Jerez to abandon the test planned for the past two days.
Though, the weather was better on Thursday than it had been on Wednesday, the track took a long time to dry out, and with only 8 days of testing for the season, the teams decided to call off the test instead.
We had a bit of a technical snafu on this week’s Paddock Pass Podcast episode, so to keep with our weekly schedule of shows, we are releasing to you this special Patreon show that we recorded two months ago with Jonathan Rea, right after he won the WorldSBK title for the sixth time in a row.
The show sees Steve English sitting down the champion, and while they talk about the season, they also explore topics into other areas, like Rea’s opportunities to race in the MotoGP paddock.
The long-lap penalty will be coming to the WorldSBK Championship, starting in 2021.
Adopting the rule after its successful rollout in the MotoGP Championship, it only makes sense for the long-lap penalty to carryover into the production superbike series.
Episode 177 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one is a WorldSBK show, which means that this one sees Steve English and Gordon Ritchie on the mics.
Looking back on the 2020 WorldSBK Championship, and everything that unfolded this year, Steve and Gordo review the season’s highlights and big moments.
The BMW M1000RR was one of the surprise new bike announcements this year, as it takes the BMW S1000RR superbike package, and cranks it to 11.
This winged homologation special will be the platform that Tom Sykes and Michael van der Mark will use on the factory BMW squad next year (along with Jonas Folger and Eugene Laverty, who will appear on two separate satellite teams).
The WorldSBK will see more diversity on its grid next season, as two satellite BMW squads will race in 2021, in addition to the factory effort.
Those two teams are the RC Squadra Corse team from Italy and the Bonovo Action team from Germany. Both squads will have only one rider, but they both will use the new BMW M1000RR superbike platform for their racing needs.
The FIM today published the preliminary and provisional calendar for the WorldSBK championship for the 2021 season.
Like all aspects of international events, it is very much a provisional affair, subject to local and regional restrictions on movement and events in light of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
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.
In lieu of an episode from the Paddock Pass Podcast this week, the team instead posted a special show for just our Patreon listeners. In that show, Steve English sits down with six-time WorldSBK Champion Jonathan Rea.
This is a short clip from that interview, and in this segment we see JR talking about his options of moving into the MotoGP paddock throughout the year. It is a pretty frank and honest insight into the two series, which we think you will find interesting.
Episode 169 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one is a WorldSBK show, which means that this one sees Steve English and Gordon Ritchie on the mics.
Our WorldSBK duo comes to us from Estoril, where the 2020 season culminated and finally crowned a champion during Saturday’s race. That man is now six-time WorldSBK champion Jonathan Rea.