The 2019 World Superbike Championship will once again feature 13 rounds, beginning on Phillip Island near Melbourne this weekend and ending on October 26 at Losail International Circuit in Qatar.
2019 World Superbike Schedule
Jonathan Rea is a British sporting hero that doesn’t get the recognition he deserves. Maybe all motorsport fans can come together and vote for the 32-year-old Northern Irishman at this year’s Sports Personality of the Year. He is frequently short-listed but usually ignored by voters who don’t realise that he’s the only man to have won three back-to-back WSBK titles. In 2017, he won no fewer than 16 of his 26 races and secured a further eight podium finishes, taking him to the largest points total in the championship’s history and breaking the 2002 record of Colin Edwards in the process.
Not one to rest on his laurels, however, Rea continued to break records last year when his 60th World Superbike victory at Brno in the Czech Republic overhauled the long-standing record of WSBK legend Carl Fogarty. He’s been racing bikes since he was 16 and a fifth WSBK looks on the cards as he’s been quickest in testing at Phillip Island this month ahead of the new season.
This season’s WSBK races will see the leading riders take to the grid on three separate occasions following the introduction of a short 10-lap sprint race to determine grid positions for the main race later in the day. It’s to be known as the Tissot Superpole Race and it will also carry championship points.
Rea has won the world title in the last four years aboard the Kawasaki Racing Team ZX-10R and ZX-10RR Ninja superbikes. He is only a general 2/5 to make it five titles in a row but Ducati is hoping to be more competitive this year as it switches to the Panigale V4 superbikes from the 1199cc V-Twin Panigale, which it has used since 2013. Welshman Chaz Davies is starting his fifth season with Ducati and is hoping the injury problems that hampered his challenge in 2018 are behind him, though accepts he and the new V4 may need time to show their collective worth. Davies is a best 8/1 to be WSBK champion in 2019 with bookmakers regarding team-mate Alvaro Bautista as a bigger danger to Rea’s dominance.
91st Oscars 2019 – Predictions & Winner Odds
Spaniard Bautista is in his first season in World Superbikes having competed in Moto GP for nine years, riding first for Suzuki before moving on to Honda, Aprilia and finally Ducati. He never finished higher than fifth in the Moto GP World Championship but has seemed more in tune with the new V4 in testing than Davies and is only a best 4/1 with Sportingbet to become WSBK champion at the first attempt.
Derby-born Leon Haslam is back for a third spell in the World Superbike Championship having taken a year off last year to compete in the British Superbike Championship, which he won. The Briton has plenty of experience on the world stage as he has won five WSBK races and made the podium on another 39 occasions, competing in eight full seasons in the class since 2003. He’ll partnering Rea for the second time in his career and is a strong back-up for the Provec Racing squad but he is clearly the number two so general odds of 10/1 won’t make much appeal unless something happens to his team-mate.
