WSBK Season Review

This has been a vintage year for the World Superbike championship, with Troy Bayliss bidding farewell to motorcycle racing by winning the WSBK title for the third time.

The season started in the desert at the bland, featureless Losail track in Qatar. It was a great start to the year, with Max Biaggi on the Sterilgarda Ducati immediately getting into a battle with Santander Yamaha's Noriyuki Haga. The battle ended when Max chopped Haga's nose off into a corner. The furious Japanese star lifted his left hand from the bars to remonstrate and promptly highsided, landing on his head. Troy Bayliss was riding like a madman, never using the same piece of astroturf twice, causing his team boss Davide Tardozzi to have kittens on the pitwall. The Aussie fought to the end with Max Biaggi, the Italian passing but running wide in the last corner, allowing Bayliss to cut back inside, taking a long look over his shoulder at Biaggi before taking the chequered flag. The second race saw Fonsi Nieto winning thanks to the sheer speed of his Suzuki on Losail's long straight, beating Ducati duo Ruben Xaus and Max Biaggi into second and third places...

Read my whole World Superbike Season Review at Motorbikesport.

BSB Season Review

The 2008 British Superbike Championship season was as exciting as ever, with crashes, controversy and some great racing.

The year did not start at Brands Hatch. Well, it partially started at Brands, but when everybody woke up for race day there was a thick blanket of snow covering the track. Snow at Brands Hatch? That's global warming for you. The round was postponed until later in the season.

Thruxton became the first race of the year. The GSE Ducati squad showed up despite claiming that they were pulling out of the BSB series due to the technical rules, which would supposedly make the new 1098R too dangerous to race. The GSE hokey-cokey would continue through the year. Shane Byrne was completely unfazed by the rules controversy, storming to victory on the GSE Ducati in race one. Race two was the scene of a monster crash. Tom Sykes, riding the Rizla Suzuki, clipped the back of Leon Haslam's HM Plant Honda, and was thrown off the bike. The errant Suzuki then continued its trail of destruction by smacking Rob Mac Yamaha rider Karl Harris in the head. Incredibly, once Harris was extricated from the air fence he was able to walk to the ambulance, albeit with some help. This would set the scene for Karl's year. He's incredibly tough, but seems to have no luck at all. HM Plant Honda youngster Cal Crutchlow managed to win the restarted race.

Read the rest of my BSB Season Review at Motorbikesport.

WSBK: Bayliss Bows Out With Portimao Double

Troy Bayliss ended his glittering career at the top, with a crushing double victory in the final World Superbike meeting of the year at the new Portimao track in Portugal, having started from pole position.

The Portimao racetrack is so new that grass has not yet grown on some of its earth banks. However, it has all the character of a decades-old British or American track. There are twists, turns and elevation changes everywhere, making this track seem like a tarmac rollercoaster. Troy Bayliss described Portimao as being "like Oulton Park with runoff", with other riders comparing it to Brands Hatch. With the modern tendency towards building "Formula One tracks", i.e. boring, flat, featureless circuits built in the vain hope of making F1 cars overtake, it is astonishing to see that the Portuguese have gone against the trend to build a truly magnificent bike track. Virtually all of the racers heaped praise on the new circuit, and it brought us some brilliant racing. How appropriate that such an all-action track should have a corner named after Craig Jones.

Race One
Bayliss made a perfect start on the Xerox Ducati, leading into the first corner and disappearing into the wide blue yonder. The track was greasy after the previous day's torrential rainfall, and although some riders started to beat Troy's lap times towards the end of the race, the Australian was long gone. There is little to say about his race except that it was a display of utter dominance from the newly crowned champion. While Bayliss lapped alone in front, the real action took place in the chasing pack.

Wildcard rider Cal Crutchlow made an excellent start on his HM Plant Honda, but tried to challenge Bayliss for the lead and was pushed a little wide in the first turn. This allowed Hannspree Ten Kate Honda's Jonathan Rea, Sterilgarda Ducati's Ruben Xaus and Santander Yamaha's Troy Corser to surge past the Englishman. Michel Fabrizio had made a respectable start on the second Xerox Ducati bike, and was challenging Sterilgarda Ducati's Max Biaggi when the pair tangled and went down just a few corners into the race. The tiny Roman Emperor was furious with his young compatriot, and there was a hilarious moment when Max charged over to Fabrizio, grabbing him by the crash helmet and shaking it angrily.

It would be impossible to give a detailed account of the race for second place as the pack was shuffled on virtually every lap, but here are the highlights. The leading pack of Xaus, Corser, Rea and Crutchlow beat each other up like their lives depended on it. Xaus was especially vigorous in overtaking the young British riders, leading to some real hair-raising moments. Crutchlow moved to the head of the pack and seemed to be pulling away, but only for a few corners before he was hauled back into the scrum. All of this was slowing the riders down, and the next group of HM Plant Honda wildcard Leon Haslam, Hannspree Honda veteran Carlos Checa and Santander Yamaha nutter Noriyuki Haga caught up to make an insane seven bike freight train.

Rea and Crutchlow were both riding very aggressively, and both made small mistakes that lost them several places. Crutchlow would eventually drop out with a destroyed rear tyre. Checa and Haga were the men on the move. Leon Haslam was holding second place when Haga arrived. The Japanese star showed his young rival no quarter, elbowing him off the racing line onto the greasy area of the tarmac, where he would lose a few places before finding some grip. Haga was then enveloped in a fight with Checa and Corser, but the Japanese Samurai of Slide was forced to retire with a gearbox problem. Checa was now the fastest man in the race, but even with a badly worn rear tyre, Bayliss held an insurmountable lead to the chequered flag, and the Spaniard had to settle for second place, with Corser third...

Read the rest of my Portimao WSBK report at Motorbikesport.

MotoGP: Valencia Testing Roundup

The two day post-race test at Valencia is now done and dusted. The riders lapped on the first incarnation of the Bridgestone control tyre. Day 1 was dry, while day 2 was wet and most riders didn't bother going out on track. Here are the main points of interest.

The usual suspects were fastest. Stoner, then Pedrosa, then Rossi. That's no surprise, you could be racing supermarket trolleys around a car park and these guys would still come out on top.

The control tyres were pretty good. There are only two compounds available, and the riders were happy with the pace and endurance. This confounds the purists, who claimed that the riders would be appalled when they found out what the single tyre rule really entailed. The Michelin runners were delighted with their switch to Bridgestones, especially the super-grippy front tyres they'd all been hearing about. I'm sure there will be whingeing later on in the testing season when they're casting about for excuses, but it was a good start on the tyre front.

Nicky Hayden seemed to get along well with the Ducati GP9. He was around 1.5 seconds off Stoner's blistering pace, but lapped faster than Marco Melandri did in the Valencia GP with a year's experience of the bike and 2 years on Bridgestones. Legend has it that when Melandri first rode the Ducati GP8, he came back to the pits ashen-faced, already knowing that he had made a huge mistake. Hayden is far more optimistic, and has started well. He was fastest in the wet on day 2, although most of the top guys didn't bother going out and getting wet so there isn't much to compare him against. It's looking cautiously optimistic for the Kentucky Kid.

Speaking of Marco Melandri, he showed signs of still having a pair during the race at Valencia, and those signs seem to be confirmed by his times on the Kawasaki. With just a few hours of experience on the Kwaka, he lapped just 0.02 seconds from John Hopkins' best time. It's not clear whether Melandri tested the Green Machine in secret earlier in the season or whether he just said that to shut up Loris Capirossi. Either way, Marco did extremely well, and may even be able to help Kawasaki turn their green pile of junk into a racing motorcycle. I think his reputation is going to be healed next year and we'll see the old Macho Melandri back again.

Sete Gibernau was slower than Hayden on the Onde 2000 Ducati, sponsored by a vicious dictator who pockets his nation's oil money while his people die in abject poverty.

New boy Mika Kallio is settling in well to the Pramac Ducati team, saying he was pleasantly surprised by the rideability of the Bologna Bullet, and its outstanding engine.

Andrea Dovizioso reports that he is already being blanked by his new Repsol Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa and his overbearing manager Alberto Puig. You're nobody in Honda until you're having a feud with Puig. Dovi was happy with the factory bike, though. The Italian was 7th fastest in the dry and 2nd fastest in the wet, just fractions behind Hayden.

Chris Vermeulen was faster than Loris Capirossi, with the pair lapping 4th and 5th fastest in the dry, but that doesn't mean much. Suzuki always flatter to deceive in test sessions.