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still a lot of fight left in the diminutive Spaniard and whilst he’s fifty-five points behind Toprak, there’s still plenty to play for and we know just how unpredictable WorldSBK can be.
In the Kawasaki camp Alex Lowes continues to be competitive and consistent. Whilst he’s too far back from Toprak to be a realistic championship contender, his Donington results narrowed the gap between himself, in fourth, and Baustista, in third on the championship table to twenty-one points. This is the best season we’ve seen from Lowes in quite a while and a remarkable turn-around from the last few seasons when he’s rarely been in the frame for podium finishes. Lowes’ teammate Axel Bassani in his first season with
KRT hasn’t yet come to grips with the Kawasaki. Misano was his best round to-date but Donington was another disappointment with a best finish of tenth in Race Two to see him sitting in twelfth in the series points heading to Round Six.
To call season 2024 a mixed-bag for Yamaha is an understatement. Locatelli has been dependable, scoring points regularly and placing fifth in the series coming away from Donington, some way adrift of Alex Lowes in fourth. Perhaps the most positive news for the team is that Jonathan Rea is finally starting to gel with the R1M. Sixth in Race One at Assen and fifth in the Superpole race were encouraging but a fall in Race Two, and a nineteenth-place finish after remounting was a disappointing end to the weekend.
But it was Donington where Rea finally tasted champagne with an excellent third place in the Superpole sprint race. His early season struggles see him way back in eleventh spot on the table leaving Donington but it’s clear that he’s not giving up and let’s hope that he continues to improve as the second half of the season looms large.
GRT Yamaha men Remy Gardner and Dominique Aegerter are still ahead of Rea on points. Gardner had an excellent outing at Assen scoring his first, and very well-deserved, WorldSBK podium with a third place in Race Two. This isn’t likely to be his last visit to the podium this season but, disappointingly, good qualifying pace at Donington didn’t translate into the race results that he would’ve liked.
Of the independent riders, Andrea Iannone hasn’t been able to maintain his stunning early season form and he’s dropped away from being a regular podium contender. He has enough selfbelief to think that he’s good enough for a factory ride in WorldSBK or even possibly a switch to MotoGP but he’s going to need to rediscover his early season form for those to be realistic aspirations. Bautista has yet to make his intentions for 2025 clear and if he did retire, perhaps Iannone would be a strong contender to take the vacant seat if it’s available but he’s going to need to start putting together the sort of results we saw at the start of the season or a factory seat is unlikely to come his way.
Iannone’s primary adversary in the chase for top independent rider was Danilo Petrucci who had been performing admirably on the Barni Park Racing Ducati in the early rounds but lost ground in the series after having to miss Assen as a result of the quite serious injuries he sustained in an MX accident. Petrucci returned to the field of play at Misano, an early return which had a lot of people wondering if he was really ready for it. Petrucci was one of those left wondering and by the time the first race came around, his goal was simply to finish. Not surprising then that three top-ten finishes with a best of sixth in the second full length race was seen by the paddock and spectators alike as an absolutely heroic effort. Coming away from Misano, Petrucci trailed Iannone by just seventeen points and in ninth place in the standings.
Respect. So much determination from one of the nicest guys in the paddock. He backed up his Misano performances at Donington with another three top ten finishes and a best of sixth in Race Two to narrow the gap between him and Iannone to just three points.
Honda, well they’re still in the game but with Vierge and Lecuona falling back to sixteenth and nineteenth respectively after Round Five, there’s not much happening of note there.
Round Six of WorldSBK is up next at Autodrom Most in the Czech Republic over the weekend of 19th-21st July. The Portuguese round takes place early August and then French, Italian and Spanish rounds make September a gala of WorldSBK action with the final two rounds taking place in October.
Toprak Razgatlioglu continues to demonstrate just how talented he is. Impressive early-season performances on what was assumed to be a bike with little potential has now turned into an almost unbeatable package. In all three races at Donington, he settled himself in the early laps, made the pass to take the lead and then basically just disappeared into the distance. It does mean that the excitement is in the midfield rather than that the front of the race but no one can fail to be impressed at just how good Toprak and BMW have become in such a short space of time. But with seven Rounds left to run, nothing is certain yet.
