WorldSBK preview: Phillip Island

The 2019 Superbike World Championship kicks off at Phillip Island from February 22-24, with the 32nd year of competition for the world’s premier production series set to deliver more excitement and bang-for-the-buck entertainment than ever before.

There’s new bikes, increased manufacturer support and a third WorldSBK race slotted into the program – a 10-lap sprint on Sunday, which will sit between the traditional 22-lap races.

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And there will be 10 other races across the weekend – World Supersport on Sunday, as well as nine battles across Australian Superbike, Supersport and Supersport 300 to kickstart the local season.

The schedule may have been shaken up for 2019, but one constant remains – Kawasaki factory pilot Jonathan Rea will again be the man to beat.

The Northern Irishman has won the last four WorldSBK titles and, after another stellar pre-season on the ZX-10RR, he starts the 2019 championships as the overwhelming favourite – and at a circuit where he always performs with distinction.

Since his world title-winning reign began in 2015, Rea has won five of the eight WorldSBK races at Phillip Island, and finished on the podium in another two.

Who can beat Rea at Phillip Island in 2019? His new Kawasaki teammate Leon Haslam got the better of him there in 2015, while Italian Marco Melandri won both races at the 4.445km circuit in 2018 as well as setting a new lap record.

MORE: Rea dominant in final European test

Melandri’s now on a satellite Yamaha instead of a factory Ducati so he will find the going a lot tougher in 2019 – but the man who replaced him at the Italian marque could be Rea’s toughest opponent.

That rider is Spaniard Alvaro Bautista, who was a sensational fourth in the MotoGP race at Phillip Island in 2018 filling in for the injured Jorge Lorenzo in Ducati’s factory team – so he knows the fast way around the circuit.

Bautista, the 2006 125 GP world champion, will also be armed with the new high-revving Panigale V4 R – the first time the most successful brand in the history of WorldSBK has gone down the V-four path.

Bautista was third on the timesheets in the final European testing in Portugal in late January, behind Rea and Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha) and in front of Haslam, Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha), Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad), rookie and reigning world supersport champion Sandro Cortese (GRT Yamaha) and Melandri (GRT Yamaha).

MORE: WorldSBK triple treat confirmed for PI

Lowes has been strong all pre-season, while Sykes and German Marcus Reiterberger are leading BMW’s charge back into WorldSBK – with an all-new S 1000 RR that’s also producing some jaw-dropping performance numbers.

The Phillip Island grid will also include world No. 2 Chaz Davies, the second Aruba.it Ducati factory rider, Turkish star Toprak Razgatlioglu (Puccetti Kawasaki), multiple WorldSBK race winner Eugene Laverty (Goeleven Ducati), and the Moriwaki-Althea Honda Racing pairing of Leon Camier and returning Japanese veteran Ryuichi Kiyonari – a team backed by the might of the Honda Racing Corporation.

And locals will be able to cheer on reigning Aussie superbike champion Troy Herfoss (Honda) and teenager Tom Toparis (Yamaha), who will be competing as wildcards in the WorldSBK and WorldSSP classes respectively – and both determined to be well amongst the points.

MORE: WorldSBK testing: Ducati’s Bautista on top

A rider who once dominated WorldSBK races at Phillip Island, Troy Bayliss, will also be in action from February 22-24 as one of the leading lights in the Australian Superbike Championship – still a front-runner just one month shy of his 50th birthday!

Bayliss (Ducati), Herfoss (Honda), Suzuki pair Josh Waters and Wayne Maxwell, Daniel Falzon (Yamaha), Aiden Wagner (Yamaha) and Glenn Allerton (Yamaha) are just some of the big names in a massively strong Aussie Superbike field, and in Supersport Toparis, Oli Bayliss and Nic Liminton (all Yamaha) are the standouts.

Meanwhile, Supersport 300 is the smallest class in terms of horsepower, but the largest in terms of numbers with a grid of nearly 40. It produces some exceptionally close racing as the young firebrands of road racing – some as young as 14 years old – go hard at it on their Kawasakis, KTMs and Yamahas.

From Friday practice and qualifying, to racing across all three days in the world and local classes, all’s set for a weekend of sensational production bike action at Phillip Island from Friday to Sunday.