Five key takeouts from the 2022 WorldSBK season

The 2022 Superbike World Championship concluded at a wild and woolly Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit on November 20, as the iconic layout again climbed to the summit – drawing one round clear of Assen – as the venue that’s hosted the most action in the production-based category since its inception in 1988.

This year’s round may have been a dead rubber based on Alvaro Bautista (Ducati) wrapping up the title one week before in Indonesia, but it mattered little: pride was still on the line as the WorldSBK top brass got to work for the final time this year – and with Phillip Island hosting the opening round in 2023, it was also a chance to lock away some useful intel.

The records show that Kawasaki's Jonathan Rea (race one) and Bautista (races 2-3) shared the victories at Phillip Island, but let’s take a more holistic view of what transpired in 2022 and some tasty Aussie bites ahead of 2023.

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Bautista joined the WorldSBK paddock in 2019 and dominated the first half of the season on the factory Ducati – but then it all began to unravel as the mistakes kicked in and defending champion Rea produced a stirring rear-guard action. Rea eventually prevailed, but this year – back on a Ducati after two years with Honda – Bautista has been a beacon of class and composure as he joined Carlos Checa as the only other Spaniard to win a WorldSBK title.

There’s no doubt Bautista deserved to be 2022 world champion – he rode quite brilliantly and displayed an ice-cool demeanour – but on the flipside he’s had an obvious horsepower and acceleration advantage on the high-revving Ducati which has seen him regularly blast past main rivals Rea and Toprak Razgatlioglu (Yamaha) like they were standing still. And that stark advantage has been exacerbated by Bautista’s diminutive stature. In a category where levelling out the competition has always been a big part of the landscape, can that disparity continue and is a combined bike and rider weight coming?

Razgatlioglu may have ceded the championship to Bautista in 2022, but is there a more exciting entertainer in road racing? The way he makes his YZF-R1 twist, turn and brake later than anyone else is quite intoxicating – the type of razor’s-edge riding that the likes of Casey Stoner and Marc Marquez mastered in MotoGP. The ragged edge but with bugger-all mistakes. And we haven’t even really touched on his endless post-race endos and his playful antics on pit scooters….

Whatever the circumstances of Remy Gardner’s exit from MotoGP after just one season – on the surface it has an unceremonious tone – WorldSBK is definitely the winner as he’ll be joining GRT Yamaha in 2023 to become the first Aussie full-timer in the championship since Josh Brookes in 2016. That’s a long drought for a country with such a strong Superbike pedigree, and Jack Miller for one believes he’ll be battling up the front with the likes of Bautista, Rea, Razgatlioglu, Alex Lowes (Kawasaki), Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Ducati), Andrea Locatelli (Yamaha) and Scott Redding (BMW) before too long – and if that prediction is brought forward to the opening round at Phillip Island we’ll be in for a treat!

With his rookie year in WorldSSP now behind him, Oli Bayliss has laid the foundations to take the next step in 2023 and firmly ensconce himself regularly in the top 10 – and who knows where after that? In the Phillip Island finale, a lowly grid position and average start weren’t ideal, but once he kicked into gear he rode out of his skin and started picking off riders with relative ease at a circuit he knows well. But after one year, he now knows all the circuits, so he can now put that learning part of the equation in the rack and claim some massive scalps in 2023.

The opening round of the 2023 WorldSBK and WorldSSP titles will be held at Phillip Island from February 24-26. For more information, including ticketing and camping options, visit www.worldsbk.com.au.