World Superbikes 2019

[DaveyB]

Round 2 of the Championship, Thailand.
Race 1 done and dusted, great battle at the front for 1st and 2nd, then great race for 3rd - 6th.
Bit of elbowing that saw Bautista almost on the floor on first couple of laps.
WSBK this year has definately started well. 2 more races on Sunday coverage starting at 05:30 on Eurosport2.

 

[Ghost]

Only got around to watching the first 2 races of the season yesterday.. love watching racing at Phillip Island, never disappoints.

 

[DaveyB]

Only got around to watching the first 2 races of the season yesterday.. love watching racing at Phillip Island, never disappoints.

That V4 Ducati does appear to be hell of a weapon. It was very interesting listening to Shakey Byrne/ James Hayden/ James Whittam talking on Sunday, in that certain teams (aka all of the others) are jumping up and down saying that it has to be penalised since it is dominating. Yet it is only one rider on that particular bike that is doing the domination, therefore is it more about it suiting Alvaro because it is so similar to the MotoGP machinery that he has just stepped off. His teammate is way down field and not even challenging top 5! So you can’t penalise the bike. Hell just look at the dominance of Jonny Rea and the Kawasaki for the last few seasons. Nothing was done about that. Ducati have built the bike to be an out and out racing machine from the ground up, complying with ever line of the rule book. Other manufacturers produce a road bike then slap on all the racing components.
However, when you watched it going into the corners at Bur-Iram at the weekend it did not look comfortable, and Alvaro is not too good on the brakes either. So just like the GP Desmosedici, it doesn’t like cornering. Squirts out of them like a dose of salts, but can’t turn in to them.

 

[DaveyB]

So all of the Ducati’s have been penalised for Bautista being so good. They have had their max rpm’s dropped by 250, so only Rev to 16,150 rpm’s now. Only!!!
None of the other Ducati’s have been anywhere, so am amazed that race management have done this, no one other than Bautista can ride it.
Yet Rea as world champ for the last 4 years, who was running away with races in previous years was never given a bike penalty in those seasons.
Map this same theory across to MotoGP. Marquez was 10secs in the lead in Argentina, and then during either FP4 or Q1 in Texas was 2 seconds ahead of the second place rider. So when is the Repsol Honda going to be penalised?????

Despite it snowing in Assen on Saturday, and that day’s racing brim shelved, sun was out for Sunday. Two full races, no sprint race.
Race 2 was really good, extremely close for the first 10 laps.