Preview

The 20th year of World Superbike action launches this Thursday (racing on Saturday Feb 24) at the Losail circuit in the Middle East’s Qatar, with world champion Australian Troy Bayliss beginning his quest to become just the fourth rider to win successive titles.

The 37-year-old is currently at the peak of his motorcycle racing powers. Not only is Bayliss the current monarch in World Superbikes, but he also dismantled the field in last year’s final round of the MotoGP title in Spain.

While ecstatic that he was able to overpower marquee riders like Valentino Rossi and world champion Nicky Hayden, Bayliss has committed to seeing out his road racing career in World Superbike with the slick Ducati operation.

Bayliss’ current contract will see him through to the end of the 2008 season, where he hopes to join Carl Fogarty on four world titles – as well as eclipsing the Englishman’s tally of 59 World Superbike wins. Bayliss currently sits on 34 victories, one ahead of compatriot Troy Corser.

Bayliss has been a colossus in pre-season testing, eclipsing the current lap record at all the circuits he has visited: Valencia, Qatar, Phillip Island and, just last week, Vallelunga in Italy.

However, Monaco-based Bayliss is fully aware that a prolific pre-season means very little in the big picture, and the real action begins with the opening practice session at Losail this Thursday.

“Testing there (at Losail) in December looked great on paper but if I come onto the straight first and there's anybody within half-a-second, they're going to pass me,” said Bayliss. “I have to make a break and that's very hard to do. You can try as hard as you can to get away, but you chew your tyres up, it's going to be a difficult situation.

“Although we've basically got the same package as we had last year with a few minor changes, the team has worked really hard on the settings over the winter and we're still confident we can do a good job with what we've got. Pirelli has also worked well and come up with some new tyres, which have gone fantastically well in testing. There’s no doubt we are in a good situation.”

Bayliss will join a select coterie if he wins successive World Superbike titles in 2007: Americans Fred Merkel (1988-1989) and Doug Polen (1991-1992); and Fogarty (1998-1999).

Aside from Bayliss, seven other World Superbike winners will be on the grid at Losail, as well as four-time world 250 GP champion Max Biaggi, who replaced Corser at Suzuki at the end of last year.

Corser, in turn, was only a short-term World Superbike exile before finding incumbency at Yamaha Motor Italia alongside Japan’s Noriyuki Haga – replacing compatriot Andrew Pitt in the process.

Corser, 35, has won two of the four World Superbike outings at Losail, and he’s certain to again be one of the big guns after a methodical pre-season aboard the latest incarnation of the YZF-R1.

The Wollongong rider returned to Losail last week to round off his preparations, and managed to iron the last bugs out of the Yamaha’s system.

"We did enough laps to let us try everything we needed to try and we got all the parts we asked for after the last test,” said Corser. “It was a definite improvement. We just tried different things and weren’t worried about lap times.

“I’d say the bike feels even better than it did in our last test at Losail. The track surface can change here day to day but the track wasn’t too bad; we just needed a few more bikes going round to put more rubber down."

There will be three other Aussies in this year’s championship: Gold Coast’s Karl Muggeridge, Melbourne’s Steve Martin and Bringelly’s Josh Brookes.

Martin’s seventh year in World Superbikes will see him re-unite with the Italian-based DFX Racing, where he spent his first four seasons in the championship. The 38-year-old will be Honda-mounted alongside mercurial Italian Michel Fabrizio, and is ready to circulate at the front on a consistent basis despite an abbreviated pre-season.

“I would stay home if I didn’t think I could achieve a top five finish as a minimum,” said Martin, whose pre-season has been limited to European outings only. “It’s always difficult to ride a bike at only one circuit especially in the middle of a European winter to learn its intricacies,” said Martin. “Until I get a few races under my belt we won’t see where we are at. This year could be my best chance so I want to make the most of it.”

Brookes, 22, will remain at Team Bertocchi in 2007, but he too is switching to Honda, from Kawasaki machinery. Muggeridge, the 2004 world Supersport champion, will join Brookes at Bertocchi in what is shaping up as a potent antipodean combination.

But this year’s title certainly won’t be the sole province of Australian riders, with experienced competition coming from not only the Samurai of Slide, Haga, but also the mega-talented Biaggi, who has been a force in pre-season testing from the get-go; proven race winner Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki); 2004 World Superbike champion Toseland (Honda); ex MotoGP rider Roberto Rolfo (Honda); 11-time race winner Ruben Xaus (Ducati); Bayliss’ Lanzi; Fabrizio; and the pairing of Regis Laconi and Fonsi Nieto now collaborating in a streamlined Kawasaki operation.

Kagayama and Toseland are the only other riders to have won races at Losail. The 5.380km circuit’s short history certainly appears to bring out the best in the Suzuki, which augers well for Biaggi to make a strong impression in his World Superbike debut.

This year’s World Superbike grid will feature 22 regular riders, bolstered at several events by wild card entries.

In the manufacturer stakes, there is a classic name making a full time return to SBK racing for the first time - MV Agusta with Austria's Christian Zaiser on board. The legendary Italian machine, to be campaigned in a low-key privateer effort, will join Yamaha, Ducati, Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki on the grid. All of them will draw from the same pool of Pirelli control tyres.

In World Supersport, all the signs point towards a year-long battle of epic proportions between Yamaha-backed Aussie pair Kevin Curtain and Broc Parkes, and Honda teamsters Sebastien Charpentier and Kenan Sofuoglu.

Charpentier retained his championship in 2006 over Curtain, while Sofuoglu was lightning fast in the second half of the year. Parkes was also a race winner before injury curtailed his challenge.

The Superbike World Championship will be held over 13 rounds in 2007, including a return to the Donington for the first time since 2001. A new circuit is also on the calendar -- Vallelunga, just outside Rome.

The local round will be held at Phillip Island next weekend from March 2-4, with a special 20th anniversary celebration planned with some of Australia’s former World Superbike stalwarts.


FINAL 2006 WORLD SUPERBIKE STANDINGS
1 Troy Bayliss, Australia, Ducati 431
2 James Toseland, Great Britain, Honda 336
3 Noriyuki Haga, Japan, Yamaha 326
4 Troy Corser, Australia, Suzuki 254
5 Andrew Pitt, Australia, Yamaha 250
6 Alex Barros, Brazil, Honda 246
7 Yukio Kagayama, Japan, Suzuki 211
8 Lorenzo Lanzi, Italy, Ducati 169
9 Chris Walker, Great Britain, Kawasaki 158
10 Fonsi Nieto, Spain, Kawasaki 139
12 Karl Muggeridge, Australia, Honda 123
21 Steve Martin, Australia, Petronas 19
28 Josh Brookes, Australia, Yamaha 3

2007 WORLD SUPERBIKE CALENDAR

1. February 24 Qatar Doha/Losail

2. March 4 Australia Phillip Island

3. April 1 Europe Donington Park

4. April 15 Spain Valencia

5. April 29 Netherlands Assen

6. May 13 Italy Monza

7. May 27 Great Britain Silverstone

8. June 17 San Marino Misano

9. July 22 Czech Republic Brno

10. August 5 Great Britain Brands Hatch

11. September 9 Germany Eurospeedway Lausitz

12. September 30 Italy Vallelunga

13. October 7 France Magny-Cours