2010 World Superbike Round1 – Preview
26-02-10 by Marko Alat
Phillip Island served up a clear blue dome of sky and a bright yellow ball of Sun for the dawning day’s action in the 2010 World Superbike Championship. For the second year in a row, Australia is hosting the opening round, the first laying of cards on the table by the very healthy Superbike grid of 14 teams fielding 24 riders on a record-equalling seven types of machine.
The series is short one reigning champion, Yamaha having wasted no time pulling out a MotoGP seat for Ben Spies. His 2009 performance was the first time a rider had won World Superbike on debut (Fred Merkel’s 1998 title notwithstanding – there was no World SBK before then), and the first time Yamaha’s huge investment in the series over the years finally brought home the winner’s trophy. Yamaha’s hurry to get the American onto a GP bike before he gets too old is only too understandable.
That particular rider change was easy – a straight swap of current champ Spies for 2004 and 2007 champ James Toseland, who returns to World Superbike after a hard two years partnering Colin Edwards in MotoGP. Having previously won for Ducati and Honda, Toseland will now try to do the business for a third manufacturer, something no rider has yet managed.
Joining Toseland in leaving MotoGP is Australia’s Chris Vermeulen, who leaves the battling Suzuki MotoGP team. He takes over from now Honda-mounted countryman Broc Parkes (Josh Brookes is filling in for the injured Parkes this weekend) the thankless job of getting the Kawasaki ZX-10R to the pointy end of the field. Partnering Toseland is last year’s World Supersport champion, England’s Cal Crutchlow. Like Ben Spies, he won on championship debut, too. Backing them up, the satellite Pedercini team is fielding Nicky Hayden’s kid bro Roger Lee. Italian youngster Matteo Baiocco, who tried his arse off and crashed his brains out on a ZX10 last year is back for more in 2010.
France’s Sylvain Guintoli rounds out the 2010 batch of talent swap with MotoGP, who arrives into the Alstare Suzuki team via an injury-marred 2009 in British Superbikes, accompanied by Leon Camier, whose 2009 BSB title has drawn the attention of the Aprilia squad. The young Englishman joins Max Biaggi on the black-and-dayglo RSV4.
Aprilia Alitalia’s Max Biaggi and Leon Camier at the rider press conference.
Not much of the rest of the field is shuffled around. Carlos Checa is now on a Ducati, partnering Shakey Byrne. Former Suzuki pilot Max Neukirchner is back on a Fireblade.
BMW, who have done much work to get the frequently-sideways S1000RR pointing the right way down the track in the off-season, retain the services of Troy Corser and Ruben Xaus for the factory team, and are backing the satellite Reitwagen team of Australia’s Andrew Pitt and, in what is bound to cause confusion for American commentators, Austrian rider Roland Resch.
Yes, Troy Corser’s hat does say what it looks like it says. It’s an energy drink.
Oh, yeah. And Haga’s still on the factory Ducati, partnering Michel Fabrizio.
The de-rigeur customer Ducatis are represented by the Czech Republic’s Jakub Smrz and former factory rider Lorenzo Lanzi.
World Supersport has been hit hard by the Global Financial Crisis and defections of engineering talent to the nascent Moto2 control-engine class in MotoGP. For the first time since the series’ infancy in the late 1990’s, the Superbike entries outnumber the Supersports. Only 10 teams have managed to scrape together enough sponsorship to field a MotoGP-like total of only 17 riders. Yamaha and Suzuki are absent from the grid, and, with four bikes, Triumph are the second most numerous manufacturer after Honda’s 10. Three Kawasakis round out the festivities.
The fall in numbers, however, has been at the tail of the field. Cal Crutchlow’s promotion, and Andrew Pitt’s return to WSB aside, the front-runners from last year are all still there. Last year’s runner-up, Irishman Eugene Laverty, is back, as are the third through to fifth finishers, past champions Kenan Sofuoglu of Turkey and France’s Fabien Foret, and Spaniard Joan Lascorz.
Of the championship newcomers, big things should be expected of American Jason di Salvo, a long-time front-runner in AMA, and of Briton Chaz Davies, now a full-time campaigner. Both are on Triumph Daytona 675’s.
32-year-old Italian Paola Cazzola is another graduate into the world championship, and the first woman to sign up to compete for a full season. She’ll be on one of the CBR600RR’s in the field, partnered by fellow Italian newcomer Danilo dell’Omo.
Last year’s championship stood out for all the best reasons – two new manufacturers and three radical new bikes in WSB (one of which won the title), some of the biggest fields in the history of championship and tight title contests in both WSB and WSS, both won by newcomers. The maturity of the BMW and Aprilia in Superbike, and the hopeful levelling of the playing field in Supersport by the sponsorship crunch, should mean this season puts up a decent fight for a place among the more memorable ones as World Superbike nears the quarter-century mark.
Tags: 2010 World Superbike, Biaggi, Byrne, Cruthlow, Fabrizio, Haga, Phillip Island, Rea, Toseland, Vermeulen
