Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
WorldSBK BLOG<br />
TIME TO GO AGAIN...<br />
Even though we are almost two months into<br />
2020, when you work in WorldSBK, there is<br />
an almost spiritual feeling crossing the bridge<br />
that connects the towns of San Remo and<br />
Newhaven. Arriving on Phillip Island, 17,000km<br />
from home, it’s only now that the new year has<br />
really just begun.<br />
It is quite fitting that the<br />
season should kick off so far<br />
away from the European base<br />
of the teams that compete<br />
in the championship. It feels<br />
like we are properly starting<br />
an adventure for another year<br />
and it brings with it a tangible<br />
sense of anticipation. We<br />
have had the winter testing<br />
and the team launches and<br />
here were are, ready to start<br />
the first round, with teams<br />
and riders resplendent in the<br />
new liveries.<br />
The sense of anticipation for<br />
this year’s season is greater<br />
than it has been for some<br />
time. Sure we still have the<br />
same reigning champion for<br />
everyone to aim at but the<br />
distance they have to reach<br />
seems to be shortening. The<br />
two-day test at Phillip Island,<br />
immediately before the race<br />
weekend, is always an opportunity<br />
to see who is ready<br />
for the task ahead and who is<br />
facing an uphill struggle from<br />
the start.<br />
In the Honda camp the difference<br />
couldn’t be starker.<br />
At one end of the pit lane<br />
the HRC squad arrived fresh<br />
from a team presentation in<br />
Tokyo days before. They were<br />
fully prepared and look every<br />
inch the factory outfit they<br />
are. At the other end of pitlane<br />
however, the MIE Althea<br />
Honda squad, run by Moriwaki<br />
Engineering, had also<br />
come from the presentation<br />
in Tokyo but spent their first<br />
day in Phillip Island stripping<br />
down a road bike, pillion seat<br />
and standard lighting switch<br />
gear included, and building it<br />
into a race machine that they<br />
could go testing with the following<br />
day.<br />
In Phillip Island they were<br />
represented only by Takumi<br />
Takahashi. They had<br />
confirmed Jordi Torres as<br />
a second rider at the team<br />
presentation but it was too<br />
late in the day to get a bike<br />
together for him to race<br />
this weekend. <strong>On</strong> track the<br />
contrast couldn’t be starker<br />
either. Takahashi was over<br />
five seconds slower than<br />
Leon Haslam on the factory<br />
machine, who ended the test<br />
fifth fastest overall, only half<br />
a second off Jonathan Rea.<br />
That and the fact that the<br />
MIE machine blew an engine<br />
on the first day leaving<br />
Takahashi to jump off it at T4<br />
as flames billowed out from<br />
under the fairing. <strong>On</strong> to bike<br />
no.2 then.<br />
In the factory team Haslam<br />
would appear to have adapt-
Change language