2014 World Superbike Championship

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It's the last round of the superbikes from Qatar this weekend. Sykes leads Guintoli by 12 points and they're the only guys who can win it. My money is on Sykes who I think is more of a racer than Guintoli but Guinters has Melandri as a possible trump card. They haven't raced at Qatar for something like 5 years and have never raced there under lights so it really is wide open!
 
Guintoli wins, Loris Baz second - ingoring team orders to drop behind Tom Sykes on the last lap - Sykes third and now only 3 points in front going into the last race. Pretty much winner takes all!
 

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Haha, if Baz was angling for a response then he certainly got it!

Rea to Kawasaki is probably the worst kept secret in WSBK. Probably wishes he did it three years ago when they first chased him, in hindsight.

Also, the new champ is leaving Aprilia to replace Rea at Pata Honda and will join this years supersport champ, Michael van der Mark. This all but confirms that Aprilia are pulling their factory team to concentrate on MotoGP. This leaves Melandri's future uncertain. He's tipped to race for Aprilia in MotoGP but the whole reason he left there in the first place was because he wanted to race for wins and not just make up the numbers, something he'd have to settle for on an Aprilia MotoGP machine.

Randy de Puniet is shifting from being Suzuki MotoGP test rider to replacing Laverty in the Suzuki WSBK team.

Nico Terol is leaving Moto2 to join the WSBK paddock on a Althea team Panigale alongside Matteo Baiocco.

David Salom and Nicolo Canepa finished 1st and 2nd in the EVO class but are currently without a ride for next year.

Yamaha just launched their new R1 (looks bland to me) and Troy Corser is running a new team using BMW S1000RRs so hopefully there will be plenty more announcements of rider signings and new teams in the near future.
 
Forgot to mention, it looks like the series will have a round in Thailand and possibly also Chile. It would be great to see it (and motorsport in general) become more global and less eurocentric.
 
Klyntonius said:
Forgot to mention, it looks like the series will have a round in Thailand and possibly also Chile. It would be great to see it (and motorsport in general) become more global and less eurocentric.
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They might get some interest from Thailand & Chile.
 
DREAM TEAM BUFF said:
They might get some interest from Thailand & Chile.
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It's a weird series in the way it's popularity has fluctuated. Late 90's it was probably bigger than GP. Certainly the start of this century was it's low point. Hopefully the new technical rules see a return of large, deep fields with variety of machinery and nationality. It really is a good series and deserves more popularity. I think, anyway.
 
Probably helped from an Aussie perspective that we had Corser and Bayliss kicking arse, plus that Kiwi bloke Crafar, not as good but I always rooted for him.
 
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