De Luigi Ciamburro / Corsedimoto.com
BMW and Ducati will not take part in the Jerez tests on November 17-18. Kawasaki's plans are also in doubt: Will Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes debut the new 2021 weapon?
The 2021 Superbike World Championship season will launch on Tuesday November 17 in Jerez, but it will be a tentative restart. Ducati had already announced that they would not participate, and now it is BMW who has canceled the trip to Andalusia. No tests, therefore, for Tom Sykes, nor for the new recruit Michael van der Mark with the M1000RR, who will appear on the track from January. The Dutchman, however, has already done a few laps with the German four-cylinder, in Portimão. The teams are taking their time, given that the competition will not resume until next April. Indeed, the traditional opening round in Australia at the end of February has been officially postponed, and a potential replacement circuit has not been officially announced.
New Kawasaki? Yes ? No ? Maybe
On November 17 and 18, however, we should see the new Kawasaki come into action for the first time. We use the conditional because nothing is certain at the moment. World Champion Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes could also take to the track with the old Ninja, having certainly received upgrades from the 2021 model – perhaps the new engine which should represent a substantial step forward. It seems that the motivation is more linked to marketing than to technical reasons. Iwata's new Superbike will be officially presented on November 23: seeing it on the Jerez track the week before would remove much of the suspense. The fact that Kawasaki Racing Team is foreshadowing the use of "hybrid" motorcycles also suggests that the new Kawasaki is not, at least conceptually, that different from the Ninja that has dominated the Superbike scene since 2015.
Honda at work
The satellite riders will also be on track with the two Kawasaki officials: Lucas Mahias, with Puccetti, Loris Cresson confirmed with Pedercini and the Spaniard Isaac Viñales, a bet from the Orelac team. All three teams will obviously use the 2020 versions of their bikes. In Jerez we will see Yamaha and Honda in action. On the YZF-R1, there will be Toprak Razgatlioglu and Andrea Locatelli, who arrived in Superbike following his domination in the Supersport Championship, which he won hands down. The man from Bergamo has already tried the official Superbike in Portimao, the day after the closing of the World Championship, but only for a few hours. HRC will run the starting drivers, Álvaro Bautista and Leon Haslam. Stefan Bradl will also be on track to continue testing.
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