Joy Ryder
New kid’s on the block BMW are taking the positives from their first winter Pirelli test sessions at the Kayalami circuit in South Africa, and have predicted that they will be fighting for top five finishes by the end of the 2009 season, in the latest World Superbike news.
BMW will be aware that other manufacturers have entered the WSB series in recent times and have struggled to come to terms with the pace, competitiveness and consistency of World Superbike racing, particularly against the more established teams and existing manufacturers teams.
Carl Fogarty’s attempt at team management with the Foggy Petronas and also the ill fated Benelli teams bear testament to just how competitive this series can be and BMW will need to remain focused throughout the season and use all the luck they can find to reach their goals for the coming season.
BMW riders Troy Corser and Ruben Xaus are both strong and aggressive racers and would appear to have the makings of a great partnership should the S1000RR be up to the task, the pair finished the three day South Africa test in eleventh and thirteenth places respectively.
BMW are not the only new manufacturer team to be joining the World Superbike 2009 series, the Italian bike maker Aprilia will be returning to the competition with an all new RSV4 superbike that has benefited from extensive testing throughout the last few months of this year.
Aprilia’s rider line up is equally impressive, Max Biaggi was signed up after missing out on retired champion Troy Bayliss’s Xerox Ducati seat to rival Noriyuka Haga. The Italian will no doubt be anxious to at least compete at the same level as the more experienced Ducati team, but may have to be patient during the early rounds.
Joining Biaggi at Aprilia is Shinya Nakano, another rider with Moto GP experience, something that should not be dismissed, as the Aprilia RSV4 is said to be a stiff, more rigid machine than the traditional WSB bikes, resembling more, the characteristics of a Moto GP machine.
In yesterday’s World Superbike news, BMW rider Ruben Xaus said that he could not wait to wait to race with the young British riders Tom Sykes, Leon Haslam and Jonathan Rea who join the series for 2009.
Not to mention Shane Byrne of course. What a great season 2009 is set to be!
Source:
http://www.worldsuperbikenews.co.uk