2024 WSB

[GORDON STREETER]

I went up to the Almeria test circuit this morning as a friend of mine had said that there were a few WSB riders up there this week.
Scott Redding who is riding for the Bonovo Action BMW team was there as well as Remy Gardner who is with GRT Yamaha.
Although both were not riding the bikes that they will be using this year. The difference in speed between the pair of them and most of others out at the same time certainly showed how good they are, but Redding's bike was pulling a lot on him on the straight bits !!
I had a chat to both of them as there were no people about except the few people that were helping them and no big teams and trucks. Remy was virtually doing all of the work himself and Scott had turned up in a van with his helper.
What did surprise me was Remy spoke absolutely perfect Spanish !
Earlier in the week Pedro Acosta was riding down here as well but I don't know what bike he was on, and I'm not sure what bike he will be actually riding when he moves up to the top MotoGP class this year. Whatever it will be another year of excitement, and to me is better to watch than F1. This is both of them having a bit of fun !!https://youtu.be/U0Zy7RsaFr4

[justracing]

Well done Gordon, top marks for investigative research! Acosta will join GasGas on a KTM replacing Pol Espagaro I believe.

[justracing]

3 weeks to go to Phillip island and Toprak is sounding quite bullish!
https://www.worldsbk.com/en/news/202...he+first+round

[cg7aa]

Well, that was an eventful weekend's racing for the European Superbike Championship :P. I'm surprised there has been no comments yet. I shan't spoil the results except to say "Take a bow Alex Lowes, THAT overtake was staggering! Such guts."

I'll leave it there for now.

RIP Anthony Gobert.

[justracing]

Watched it live, didn't want to give the game away! Great opening weekend from Oz, you could see Alex wind up the throttle to make that move - so gutsy! but all the major contenders were there , Toprak blowing up big time and JRea taking a tumble but where did that performance come from the Maniac? This is going to be some scrap this year, incredible 2 wheel action. The Yams and Kwackers plus BMW are not going to let Ducati run away this year.

[E.B]

Im not sure I like this compulsory set or minimum time pit stop thing. It looked like total confusion with utter chaos, and presumably was something to theoretically enhance the show.

[cg7aa]

Originally Posted by E.B

Im not sure I like this compulsory set or minimum time pit stop thing. It looked like total confusion with utter chaos, and presumably was something to theoretically enhance the show.

This pitstops and such was for Phillip Island only as far as I know, I think I'm right about that. Once again, it was because the tyres wouldn't last because of the track surface.

This isn't the first time we've had this and I have to ask how this whole 'tyres won't last so pitstop for safety' has become normalised in the last couple of years. What happened to building tyres which will last the advertised race distance? Wasn't that the aim back in the day until this whole one make supplier became a thing and we had tyres which won't last races in certain conditions. To me, it has become a lame excuse not to do a better job but maybe I'm being too simplistic in my take. The manufacturer involved has a history with this sort of thing. Hiding behind 'safety'.

Anyway, my cheeky quip about the European Superbike championship hasn't is because it seems just one or two races outside a heavily Eurocentric calendar makes you a world championship series.

[justracing]

Originally Posted by E.B

Im not sure I like this compulsory set or minimum time pit stop thing. It looked like total confusion with utter chaos, and presumably was something to theoretically enhance the show.

It was confusing and appeared somewhat contrived but hopefully it was an isolated format dictated by tyre restrictions on a particularly abrasive resurfaced track. I don't think it detracted from the racing as such.