A very sad day and something i hoped would never happen. Following Ducati who pulled out of WSB this year Yamaha WSB have announced they are not going to have a factory team in 2012 leaving Marco and Eugene without rides. They will still however continue to supply race parts to private teams. Yamaha have been at the pointy end of road racing for many years and along with the YZF R1 had some fantastic race bikes including the legendary R7 (remember Haga and his R7?)
I do hope people start buying sports bikes again soon, or we will be watching Adventure trail bikes touring the USA on a Sunday afternoon. Who’s next? will Honda pull out because of the crappy season they are having?
Maybe this is a blessing in disguise, some of the best racing i have ever seen was club racing and removing the big money from the world championship may do it some good.
Tag Archives: WSB
Which is better, WSB or Moto GP
Personally i think that WSB has it this year due to the large grid and amount of brit riders. I think it was 17 bikes on the moto gp grid last weekend in Spain, and lets face it there were only 3 riders who had a chance of winning. The GP grid needs to be at least 24 bikes in my opinion and it would be really nice to see some teams like roberts or harris return with their own chassis. I also thinks that Suzuki should be made to field 2 non factory bikes too. Hopefully with the return of the 1000cc bikes it will happen, but i wonder if they will stick with using all the complicated electronics that only the very best ever understand. I much prefered it when it was the rider who makes the difference and not a little black box. Maybe we should be supporting Magnetti marrelli instead of casey stoner. Maybe its just me but i would also like Eurosport or whoever to raise the volume of the bikes and the crowds in the background during comentary, it enhances the experience. I was watching WSB the other day and you could hardly hear the bikes at all, just Jack Barnicle talking crap. To sum up, more noise, more bikes, more brit riders in gp’s, bigger engines with less restrictions and Randy Malmola back in the pit lane for Eurosport.
Bayliss to return?
I wonder if Noriyuki Haga’s crappy form is becasuse he knows that Bayliss wants his bike? With Baylistic having a quick blast round Mugello the other day breaking the lap record at the same time he clearly wants a return to have a crack at Fogarty’s wins record. Bring it on.
Leon Camiers RSV4
Leon Camier and Max Biaggi will be riding their Aprilia’s in Alitalia colours for 2010. I can see the sea of race reps at Boxhill already. Very cool old school styling.
Ben Spies becomes world champ at first attempt
With an amazing record of wins even eclipsing the likes of Fogarty, Ben Spies has wraped up the World Superbike championship this weekend with a dominant first race and a sensible championship winning second.
Noriyuki Haga crashed in race one giving away his slender lead in the chamionship leaving the door open for Spies to take the spoils.
Johny Rae had a good weekend with a second and third place whilst Shakey Byrne had a couple of very creditable fourths on a clearly slower machine.
Max Biaggi looked fast but due to a crash earlier in the weekend he couldnt manage more than a third in race one and a sixth in race two.
Leon Camier continued to impress with a sixth and seventh place finish. Leon Haslam ended a weekend to forget with two DNF’s.
Movers and shakers
A bit of news today is that Sylvain Guintoli is going to partner Leon Haslam in the Alstare works Suzuki WSB squad next year. This makes way for Yukio Kagayama to come back to old blighty to entertain us once again.
Max Neukirchner has signed for the Ten Kate Honda team for 2010. And of course James Toseland is back in WSB having swapped bikes with Ben Spies.