This weekend the championship is officially halfway with the Ducati Spaniard looking to win where he has always struggled. An important race also to help define the fates of several protagonists
– donington (england)
July with two faces for motorcycling, with MotoGP returning to the track after the Assen round on 25 June on 5-6 August at Silverstone and with SBK doing the trio: 1-2 July Donington, July 15-16 Imola, July 29-30 Most. After a long break, the championship restarts with the sixth round of the season on the difficult and spectacular English track, just resurfaced, close to the Sherwood forest, a fast mixed ups and downs of 4023 meters with long curves and very tight switchbacks that converge on the long straight to the finish line . On this track, 35 years ago, the world championship of the “big-bikes” made its debut, the racing motorcycles derived from mass production, the leap in technical-competitive quality of the TTF1 championship. The Sbk world championship is at the halfway point (12 races on the calendar) with Alvaro Bautista and the Ducati Panigale V4 ready for yet another triumphant weekend. Nothing is taken for granted, also because on this circuit the reigning world champion and current championship hare (first in 14 out of 15 races) with an 86-point lead has never won (in 2022 a crash, a second place and a fourth in the Superpole Race).
alvaro’s numbers
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A completely different music for Butista’s closest opponents, Toprak Razgatlioglu (Yamaha), here in 2018 for the first time on the podium of Race 2 in WSBK riding the private Ninja of Team Puccetti and in 2022 dominating with the trio and Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki) triumphant in four previous editions. Bautista returns to “his” Sbk after the recent significant test at Misano with the Ducati MotoGP, certainly not a harbinger of a passage of Bau-Bau in the premier class but, probably, of a MotoGP “prize-race” after having closed the practice of this Sbk world championship where the Spanish champion, after 15 races, dominated: 14 podiums or 14 victories, only one zero in the standings, 298 points conquered, 86 more than his closest rival Razgatlioglu. So far, in the first five rounds of 2023 (actually 15 races), the Turkish rider has climbed to the top step of the podium only once, in the Mandalika Superpole, then 8 times second, five times third, one retirement. Toprack remains the best… after Bautista, with feeling problems caused by a Yamaha that always lacks something to stay ahead.
toprak and the future bmw
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The Donington appointment could be the golden opportunity for the Turkish champion to demonstrate that he is capable of taking his YZF-R1 to victory, not at all “distracted” by the contract already signed with BMW to race since 2024 A choice, that of the passage of the Turkish rider in the official team of the German manufacturer, which still causes discussion. “I chose BMW because I needed new stimuli. My dream now is to bring the first world title to Munich.” In fact, bringing BMW to conquer the Sbk world championship would mean making history. Is it a realistic goal or, evaluating what has already happened to other drivers in the past and seeing the current values in the field with BMWs always in trouble, a dream that, without a technical and management revolution in BMW, will remain such?
crossroads
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The English appointment also represents a crossroads for Toprak’s co-equipier, Andrea Locatelli (150 points), so far always in the points, five times on the podium (one second and four thirds), expected at the coup, in his first center in the Sbk world championship. Even for Andrea the saying applies: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”. Also because there is an open question of who replaces Razgatlioglu. In the viewfinder Dominique Aegerter and Remy Gardner without excluding – listen! hear! – the bombshell of Franco Morbidelli’s transition from MotoGP to Sbk. Keeping your feet on the ground is the future of other riders like Scott Redding and Alex Lowesin particular that of the other two Italian “lions”: the number one of the “independents” Axel Bassani more than once close to the coup (for the first time on the podium, at Misano) however fifth in the championship, 3 points behind Rea and Bautista’s teammate, Michael Ruben Rinaldialways hovering between effectively joining the big names and remaining in the rear, with the prospect of not being confirmed in the official Ducati team at the end of the season.
Bassani and Rinaldo
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In the next two rounds at Donington and Imola, Bassani and Rinaldi can fight for their place in the official Sbk Ducati team. AND Daniel Petrucci? Will he find, right from the round in England, the right balance for a set-up on his bike capable of giving him the chance to fight for the top five and perhaps attempt the coup on the podium? However, so far, four Italian riders in the top 10. Waiting for the tricolor to wave again on the top step of the podium. The Donington round is an important step not only for the prestige of the British GP, but also for the boost it will give with respect to the questions still open on the riders’ market.
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