SBK Journal v19.04

v19.04 Featuring: WORLDSBK ROUND 05 LUKE STAPLEFORD AUSTRALIAN SBK SBKink ACCESS ALL AREAS and more.

SBK Journal | version 19.04 Welcome to issue four of SBK Journal.

The WorldSBK Championship has had another month long break between races with round five at Imola being the only action taking place in May. Even then that action was curtailed due to heavy rain falling on Sunday afternoon.

We spent the afternoon splashing up and down the pit lane and have put together a gallery of images from the race that never happened.

The British Superbike Championship has yet to get into full swing and has stuck to the UK May holiday schedule with races at the begininng and end of the month.

We caught up with Suzuki rider Luke Stapleford at Oulton Park to get details on his move from the World Supersport Championship and how he is fairing in the BSB paddock.

The Australian SBK championship has reached the mid-season break for winter in the southern hemisphere. Budding pit lane reporter Maddalena Scordia gives us her views after the first three rounds.

Feel free to share, of course, via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

When the rain comes you will find many photographers in the media centre waiting for it to clear up.

Coming from Scotland a wee bit of rain doesn’t bother Graeme Brown.

He and Jamie bring us all the activities from a soggy Imola pit lane.

Before getting drenched in Italy, Jamie Morris was enjoying park life in deepest Cheshire, shooting the BSB race at Oulton Park on a holiday Monday along with catching up with Luke Stapleford for our feature.

Maddalena Scordia works in motorsport marketing in Australia and is a regular in the ASBK paddock. She is therefore best placed to give us the low down on the ASBK championship as it comes to its mid-season break.

Back to winning ways. Jonathan Rea took a double win in Imola to keep him within touching distance of Alvaro Bautista in the 2019 WorldSBK title race.

Tommy Bridewell left Oulton Park with a narrow lead in the British Superbike Championship after the second round. He had no time to rest on his laurels when he was called on to stand in for Eugene Laverty the following weekend at WorldSBK in Imola......

.......Eugene Laverty crashed in the first free practice session on Friday morning at Imola breaking both wrists. The call was quickly made to Tommy Bridewell to stand in for the Irishman for the remainder of the weekend.

From Alvaro Bautista’s comments in the press he seemed less than comfortable with the layout of the Imola circuit but clearly benefited from the two days of testing he and Ducati had done in the run up to the event with a second and third place in the two races that took place.

Park life: The British Superbike Championship has a long tradition of running races on holiday weekends, where racing takes place on a Monday.

Outlon Park is always a popular venue for racing in the first weekend in May.

The narrow, undulating nature of Oulton Park is a long way from the wide open layouts of Grand Prix circuits but Scott Redding is getting to grips with the British Superbike Championship and his Be Wiser Ducati Panigale V4R.

Rain Stops Play

The weather forecast for the WorldSBK event in Imola changed for Friday and Saturday in the preceding week but one thing remained constant - it would rain on Sunday.

The WorldSSP race was run in the dry but as the Prosecco corks flew threw the air on the podium they met a few spots of rain.

In the 30 minute gap before the grid formed for WorldSBK race 2, the leaden skies gave up threatening and it properly rained......and rained.

It took a lot of debating and a few sighting laps for the riders before after an hour the race was called off.

Like ducks to water our photographers Graeme Brown and Jamie Morris splashed about pit lane capturing the ‘action’.

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With 14 wins he was the runaway British Supersport champion in 2015, before graduating to the world championship the following year. But after three years as a privateer in World Supersport Luke Stapleford has returned to UK shores for 2019, embarking on his debut season in the British Superbike Championship, lining up alongside Bradley Ray in the Buildbase Suzuki team. We spoke to him about making the switch from supersport to superbike and privateer to factory-backed, and why he’s focussing on racing with a smile on his face.

Luke Stapleford arguably deserves to be more of a household name.

The down-to-earth Leicestershire lad wrapped up the 2015 British Supersport title with a comfortable margin of 133 points, winning 14 races on the way while he was on the podium in every other race he finished, bar one. That same year he impressed with a sixth place finish as a wildcard in the World Supersport Championship race at Donington Park.

His ascension to the world championship full-time the following season was hardly disappointing either. Running as a privateer in a championship that - despite the slowdown of the supersport market - sees factory teams competing with huge budgets, he scored a best finish of fifth.

In 2017 and 2018 he finished in the top-10 in the championship. But it was always going to be difficult when not only are you trying to focus on racing, but also operating as team manager as well.

“In World Supersport we did everything ourselves,” Stapleford explains. “It was a real family-run team and honestly it took a lot of effort that probably took the shine off racing a motorbike a little bit. A lot of the guys, especially in the bigger teams, could turn up and think of nothing other than riding their bike, getting through practice and qualifying, and working on setting the bike up for the race.

“But for me, I did everything in the team other than prepare the bike. I had to make sure flights and crossings were booked, I had to make sure food was sorted and everyone had accommodation, I made sure the trucks had MOTs, I ordered parts, sorted contracts and entries, the lot. So to then try and focus on what I had to do on the race track was really difficult.

“It really started to get me down towards the end of last year, and honestly, the flyaways broke me; they were a nightmare to organise.

Getting 10-12 people to the likes of Argentina and Qatar, sorting flights and hire cars, and then having a shit time there as well, it wore me down. We were spending a fortune but I wasn’t enjoying it. Rather than focussing 100% on racing I was doing everything else, but only half as well it needed to be done.

I obviously had a job as well and I was lucky I could be flexible and that I could go racing, but I still had responsibility and it was being neglected. And in the end I fell out of love with motorcycle racing.

“I had a great time, and I’m proud of what we achieved as well. But everything runs its course.”

But it’s all changed for 2019.

Following a handful of wildcard appearances in the British Superbike Championship over the last couple of years, Stapleford has now made the switch full-time, forming one third of the Buildbase Suzuki team.

Operated by the Mallory Parkbased Hawk Racing outfit, the team is one of only three superbike teams officially supported by the Suzuki factory in Japan, alongside the Yoshimura team and the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team in EWC.

“I’d had a few offers to ride in BSB after winning the supersport title in 2015, and I’d talked with Hawk in the past, but honestly I was still enjoying riding the 600 and riding at world championship level,” Stapleford continues. “But towards the end of last season I knew I wanted a change from what I was doing in World Supersport; I wanted to enjoy riding bikes again, whether that was racing in BSB or just riding motocross and supermoto for fun. I was prepared to go into 2019 with nothing sorted.

“I’ve got a really good relationship with Steve [Hicken - Hawk Racing / Buildbase Suzuki team manager] as they’re only up the road and I’ve worked with them in the past.

We’d had a couple of conversations before, and then over the winter we were talking and I explained my situation and we came up with the scenario we’ve got now.

“It was important to me that I was going to go racing again and enjoy it - I didn’t want to think about ordering parts and sorting the lunches for everyone - but at the same time I also race to win, and I think everyone knows the team’s pedigree.

“I’m quite fortunate that I actually know what it takes to run a team, I know the budget it requires and I know what it costs, so I know that if you’re going to go racing as a team you’ve got to be doing it because you love bike racing, and Steve and the rest of the team definitely fall into that category.

They want to win races, that’s all they go racing for, and when I agreed to ride for them I knew they could win races with the Suzuki, I knew I’d get the support from the team, and I could go back to focussing on racing a motorbike again.”

Despite not being a complete stranger to a superbike, there was still a learning curve ahead for the 27-year-old, with a superbike commanding a shift in riding style.

“I’d obviously ridden big bikes before I jumped on the Suzuki, and during the winter I spent a lot of time on a stocker, just to get used to the GSX-R and get bike fit again,” he recalls. “I got a good few laps ticked off in Spain early in the year, before the official tests, but there was still a lot to think about when it came to improving my lap times and going faster on the superbike, and I think I’m still adapting.

“I think the biggest area I can improve is getting the most from the softer tyres. I’m using my 600 style too much and it means I’m pretty consistent throughout a session or a race, but I’m not using the tyres enough. I almost need to lose a bit of consistency and learn to go faster and push and stress the tyres more.”

After keeping his head down during testing, Stapleford flew under the radar at the season-opener at Silverstone, coming away from the first round with a seventh and a fifth to his name, something he openly admits he’d have taken in a heartbeat if you’d promised him those results during pre-season.

“I’d definitely have taken them results before the weekend,” he admits. “Honestly, I didn’t expect to be that high up. Like I said I race to win but I’m also realistic, I knew I was going to have to put the work in and learn and build up the speed. I’m confident in my ability, and in the bike and the team, and believe we can bridge the gap eventually, but we’ve got a bit of work to do and I think while Silverstone went well, the track suited the bike a bit more and Oulton showed us where we need to improve before we can get amongst the front group.”

As Stapleford suggests, if Silverstone was almost a dream start for the class rookie, the second round at Oulton Park brought him back down to earth with a bump.

A nasty bump at that, after he crashed heavily during qualifying.

But it’s not been the easiest start to the year for the Buildbase Suzuki team on the superbike front.

While Richard Cooper - who enjoyed an impressive debut on the roads at the North West 200, finishing runner-up in the second superstock race and sixth in the event’s only superbike race - leads the National Superstock 1000 championship at the time of writing, Stapleford and teammate Bradley Ray have had their struggles. While Stapleford nursed his injuries at Oulton Park, Ray struggled to 14th and 12th place finishes. However, Stapleford is able to shed some light on the current issue and remains upbeat about the season ahead, citing the team’s pedigree and the GSXR1000R’s record as reasons to take confidence into future rounds.

“Silverstone is big, fast, flat, and really suited the bike as it is now. The GSX-R is really fast, and at Silverstone you open the throttle between corners and hang on and hope for the best. At Oulton you have to play with the throttle a little bit more and we’re struggling to manage that power a little bit at the moment.

“We were working throughout practice and you can see by looking at Brad’s results that the team were making progress over the weekend, but I took a bit of a whack in qualifying after highsiding out of the first corner. It knocked me about a bit as well; normally I’m back up and picking the bike up but I just sat against the barrier for a bit. I took a bit of a hit. On Sunday I just wasn’t right, I definitely wasn’t 100%. I didn’t really say anything at the time, I just got the weekend done with.

“But the team has been working flat-out since then. The simplest thing would be to turn down the power but that’s an easy fix, whereas the best fix is to find a way to manage it better, because once we do that it’ll become a real strength for us. And I’ve got no doubt that, with the team, and with Brad and myself, we can overcome it. I’m confident in my ability, in my feedback, and there’s no doubt Brad can ride a bike; he’s won on the bike before and what he did at Oulton was incredible really, to get the lap time he did around that sort of circuit was some achievement when we’re struggling in the areas we are.

“I think it’ll be different at Donington [for the third round of the British Superbike Championship on 24-26 May] because I think we’ll make another step with the bike, and I think the track will suit us again a bit more.”

Conversation naturally steers towards the rest of 2019, and also the future beyond this season. But where you’re normally treated to the usual ambitious, if a little misplaced, optimism from many racers, Stapleford is refreshingly honest and grounded.

“This season I’m confident we will make it to the front - the bike’s already a winner in BSB and the base package is strong, just look at what Richard [Cooper] is doing, plus Steve and the team know what they’re doing. I’ve not had any goals handed to me this season by anyone. I knew coming in that I would need to get up to speed. But for me the goal is to improve the bike and get with the front group.

And then it’s to win races.

“Honestly though, I’m not looking beyond BSB. I’ve raced at world championship level and I don’t think I want to do it again. Even if a top World Superbike ride came up. I’ve flown around the world and done it. Now I just want to race with a smile on my face and enjoy it. If I can get to the front in BSB, I’d like to have more realistic goals, rather than sit here and tell you I want to be in MotoGP in five years or whatever.

I’d really like to do Suzuka, or Le Mans, and enjoy some of those experiences.

“But really, I’d love to win a championship for this team, because I see how hard they work and I genuinely feel they deserve it.

Stuart [Hicken - team owner] and Steve have given a lot to this sport and I can picture their faces if we can win a BSB championship.

That’d be a really nice day, wouldn’t it?”

Jim Daly.

SBKink

In this months SBKink we ask Kawasaki Racing Team’s Mattia Fontana the stories behind his collection of ink.

Mattia has worked in the Kawasaki Superbike team since 2008 and has been through some tough times. However, he was a key member of the team that helped Tom Sykes claim the title in 2013. Today he is Chief Mechanic on Leon Haslam’s side of the garage.

“The tattoo on my leg doesn’t really have any meaning. I just think it is a cool design.

This one on my arm is of my dog Saba that passed away last year. We actually grew up together so it was good to have something to remind me of her. She was 14 years old.

The one at the top of my left arm is a tribute to nature. The sun, the water, the trees, everything in nature.

On my back I have one to celebrate when we won the championship in 2013.

We had been through so many difficult years and in the end we get the target which is something unbelievable. If somebody said to us that in 2013 you are going to win when in 2008 or 2009 when we were struggling for everything, that was a massive thing.

The one on my shoulder is just another cool design, the first tattoo I had made.

On my fingers I have the letter for me and my son, Alessandro. Then there is Sueños which means Dreams. The three lines are just a reminder of some bad things that happened in the past and the final one is a ring for the family.” MF

Round The Bend Words: Maddalena Scordia

Pictures: Russell Colvin

Whilst other Superbike championships around the world are hitting top gear in the northern hemisphere, the Motul Pirelli Australian Superbike Championship has reached its period of winter hibernation. After three rounds the series now takes a break until the beginning of July when the action will resume at Morgan Park, Queensland.

The 2019 campaign started back in February at Phillip Island, on the Bass Coast, alongside round one of the FIM Superbike World Championship. Whilst it was a new season for ASBK, things’ looked pretty much the same as last year with most teams retaining their 2018 sponsors and liveries. Troy Bayliss touched on the point preevent when the former three times WorldSBK champion said, “We see all the (Ducati) guys riding in World Superbike on their bikes and they’re already full on race machines… our (new) bikes are basically production bikes and there’s not much stuff available.”

Maxima BMW’s Glenn Allerton echoed that sentiment in the seasons opening press conference, saying that he wouldn’t be receiving the all new BMW S 1000RR until round four, after the winter break.

What is probably most difficult for the ASBK series is that, being in the southern hemisphere it’s so far away from the epicentre of motorcycle racing in northern Europe.

Manufactures have difficulty supplying new machinery to the ASBK teams so early in the calendar year to allow them to prepare them for racing The British and MotoAmerica championship teams are in a similar position but their seasons don’t begin until April.

This gives the local distributors of the manufacturers time to deliver new models to the teams to be prepared and tested before racing begins. There is a perception that Australia is a remote location, with a relatively small a sparse population which seems to push the ASBK down the pecking order. Added to that you can only view the championship on pay TV which makes it less attractive in advertising terms and all together, in this author’s view, our location sadly battles against our talent.

Nonetheless the Yamaha Blu Cru team are always the first to be fully kitted out for the new season and for them the opening round was far from disappointing.

The whole Phillip Island event is sponsored

by Yamaha Financial Services so commercial interests clearly pay a role in getting the Landbridge Racing YZF-R1s at their best.

Team-mates Aiden Wagner and Cru Halliday set the pace in that opening round and first blood in the title race went to Wagner who was on the podium in all three races at the Island.

A second place and a double win in the three races gave him a 16-point advantage over Cru.

A month on and the action resumed at Wakefield Park in Goulburn for round two. This is home ground for reigning champion Troy Herfoss and the Penrite Honda Racing rider painted the town red with a double win. Herfoss had a difficult start to his 2019 campaign finishing in sixth place overall at the Island, but back on home ground the ‘Governor of Goulburn’ was quick to find his mojo. Cru Halliday continued his first round form finishing the weekend with a 2-2 result, leaving the 2.2km rural circuit as the new championship leader for the first time in his ASBK career.

Round three took place at the end of April at the Tailem Bend circuit close to Adelaide. At this time of the year locals will tell you that it never rains in Adelaide, to the point that at the riders briefing the teams were encouraged not to prepare for wet weather. Sod’s Law was readily applied and of course it rained on race day.

Highlighting the open nature of the Australian Championship, Josh Waters, riding the Ecstar Suzuki GSX-R1000, ended Free Practice one on Thursday afternoon with the fastest lap time. However, it was Mike Jones on the Ducati, who claimed pole position, the fifth of his ASBK career.

The show belonged to Bryan Staring however, who pulled off a rare treble, claiming victories in every race for the Kawasaki BC Performance squad. Staring, who qualified in sixth, and the only competitor running on Dunlop tyres, was able to keep a consistent pace in the latter half of each race as his rivals struggled with tyre degradation of their Pirellis on the abrasive asphalt.

A unique feature of the Australian Superbike championship is the ability to choose a tyre supplier.

All other major series around the world, all the way up to WorldSBK, have a sole tyre supplier, mostly Pirelli. Alongside oil giant Motul, Pirelli are title sponsor of the Australian championship, however, tyre choice is open in ASBK which means that some circuits will be suited to different tyre construction and compounds.

Rightly or wrongly Pirelli receive criticism across the superbike series where they are sole tyre supplier for the performance of their product, which for Aussie fans comes into sharp relief given the difficulties that the WorldSBK competitors encounter at Phillip Island every year. This year Jonathan Rea complained that he felt he couldn’t push his Ninja ZX-10RR to the limit at the Island because of tyre performance and in 2018 Pedercini Racing’s Yonny Hernandez crashed spectacularly on the exit of Siberia when his rear tyre catastrophically failed.

Every year WorldSBK struggle to run a full race programme due to concerns about the safety of the tyres.

The word in paddock at Tailem Bend was that Staring’s success was down to the performance of his Dunlop tyres but the triple win rocketed him from sixth in the championship straight into the lead of the title fight.

With three rounds completed we have had three different manufacturers winning races, which is very healthy position for any competition.

The top five riders in the ASBK title race are all capable of winning this year’s championship and you would be a brave person to put money on anyone one of them ahead of the remaining four rounds.

GRID PASS

GRID PASS

SBK Journal is Published by Slipstream Media Ltd, PO Box 26532, Glasgow, G74 9FB No part of this publication may be reproduced in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Slipstream Media Ltd. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the facts and the data contained in this publication, no responsibility can be accepted by Slipstream Media Ltd or any of the contributors for error or ommissions, or their consequences. ©Slipstream Media Ltd Photography: Graeme Brown Jamie Morris Russell Colvin Images ©geebeeimages (WorldSBK) ©jamiemorrisphotography (BSB) ©Russell Colvin (ASBK) Contributors Jim Daly Maddelena Scordia Mattia Fontana Design and Layout: Graeme Brown Jamie Morris Corey J. Coulter v19.04 | 05.19

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Coming Next......

Things move into top gear next month in the world of Superbike racing with WorldSBK action in Jerez and Misano. Things are sure to hot up as we head for the southern European sunshine and SBK Journal will be there to bring you our unique view of the action.

BSB gets back on track mid June after a break to fit around the Isle of Man TT with a visit to Brands Hatch and a run around the full GP circuit.

It is Jamie Morris’ favourite track so be sure for some top drawer images in the next issue.

We will continue our quest to get the stories beihind the art in SBKink and we will look at what’s cooking in the WorldSBK kitchens.

All that and more in the next SBKJournal.

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SBKJournal

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