Motul FIM Superbike World Championship

Losail International Circuit

Doha, Qatar

October 26, 2018

Race One Results (all on Pirelli tires):

1. Jonathan Rea, UK (Kaw ZX-10RR), 17 laps, Total Race Time 33:34.913, Best Lap Time 1:57.284

2. Tom Sykes, UK (Kaw ZX-10RR), -1.424 seconds, 1:57.805

3. Alex Lowes, UK (Yam YZF-R1), -3.705, 1:57.868

4. Eugene Laverty, Ireland (Apr RSV4 RF), -4.723, 1:57.693

5. Marco Melandri, Italy (Duc Panigale R), -10.579, 1:58.081

6. Loris Baz, France (BMW S1000RR), -13.173, 1:58.445

7. Michael Van Der Mark, Netherlands (Yam YZF-R1), -14.557, 1:58.266

8. Chaz Davies, UK (Duc Panigale R), -17.216, 1:58.189

9. Jake Gagne, USA (Hon CBR1000RR SP2), -17.277, 1:58.574

10. Toprak Razgatlioglu, Turkey (Kaw ZX-10RR), -18.179, 1:58.454

11. Lorenzo Savadori, Italy (Apr RSV4 RF), -24.924, 1:58.384

12. Leandro Mercado, Argentina (Kaw ZX-10RR), -30.183, 1:58.997

13. Xavi Fores, Spain (Duc Panigale R), -34.931, 1:57.973

14. Roman Ramos, Spain (Kaw ZX-10RR), -46.851, 2:00.146

15. Gabriele Ruiu, Italy (Kaw ZX-10RR), -58.890, 2:00.196

16. Maximillian Scheib, Chile (MV Agusta F4 RC), -9 laps, DNF, retired, 2:01.929

17. Leon Camier, UK (Hon CBR1000RR SP2), -10 laps, DNF, crash, 1:58.816

World Championship Point Standings (after 25 of 26 races):

1. Rea, 545 points, clinched 2018 World Championship

2. Davies, 356

3. Van Der Mark, 333

4. Sykes, 314

5. Melandri, 297

6. Lowes, 248

7. Fores, 230

8. Laverty, 158

9. Razgatlioglu, 151

10. Savadori, 138

11. Baz, 137

12. Camier, 108

13. Torres, 98

14. Michael Rinaldi, 77

15. Mercado, 70

16. Ramos, 65

17. Gagne, 64

18. Yonny Hernandez, 28

19. PJ Jacobsen, 21

20. Leon Haslam, 14

More, from a press release issued by Dorna:

#QatarWorldSBK– Day 2: Rea inches closer to points record with fantastic Race 1 win

2018 champion triumphs over teammate Tom Sykes in penultimate race of 2018

Rea dominates for the 11th race in a row

Seventeen down, one to go. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) has won the first race of the Pirelli Qatar Round and matched Doug Polen’s record for the most race victories in a single season, with 17 additional laps still to go tomorrow at the Losail International Circuit. He also moves to within just 12 points of the highest points tally in one WorldSBK season. The 2018 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Champion was absolutely untouchable out on the Qatari circuit, getting the holeshot at the lights and never relinquishing the race lead. Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) completed a KRT one-two, with Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team) getting the better of Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia) for third position after a race-long battle.

A dream start for the Northern Irishman pushed him into first place before even arriving to turn 1, while Laverty and Lowes jostled behind to see who could follow the Kawasaki bikes. The Aprilia’s incredible top speed on the kilometre-long straight was Laverty’s best weapon all throughout the race, using the slipstream to move into third after lap one.

With Rea managing a comfortable two-second gap over his teammate and both riders a step above the rest in terms of consistency, all eyes were set on the Yamaha and Aprilia battle behind. Lowes moved ahead in lap 6 but was again beaten on the front straight three laps later. It all came down to an epic last lap battle where they rubbed shoulders all the way through, including a brave final pass from the Englishman at turn 12. Laverty tried to return the favour on the final turn but nearly lost the front end, handing Lowes the final podium position. There is a silver lining for the Aprilia rider however: he starts from P1 on tomorrow’s grid.

Xavi Fores (Barni Racing Team) followed the front quartet with a confident race all the way to the final lap, but late issues pushed him down to thirteenth to the benefit of Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati). The Italian takes fifth position and will start his last race for the Borgo Panigale squad from the front row of the grid.

The last two laps at Losail saw one of the wildest battles of the season, as Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati), Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team) and Loris Baz (GULF Althea BMW Racing Team) raced side-by-side for that final front row spot. The Frenchman was triumphant in this war, taking sixth position with the Yamaha in seventh, while Davies nearly lost eighth position on the final straight to Jake Gagne (Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team), ninth.

Toprak Razgatlioglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) closed the top ten, with Lorenzo Savadori (Milwaukee Aprilia) in a disappointing eleventh after starting from the second row.

The final race of the 2018 WorldSBK season is upon us! Tune in tomorrow at 19:00 local time (16:00 GMT) to find out who can claim the last win of the season,

P1 – Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK)

“It was a really fun race especially in the beginning as I was able to feel really good with the ZX-10RR. In the last five laps I started running into some problems with my front tyre and it was a case of nursing it home, so there’s definitely work to do for tomorrow to finish in the same position. I’m so happy to have 17 wins in a season and so fortunate to be in this situation with the Kawasaki Racing Team, and the bond I have with the team and the bike – it’s incredible. Thanks to everybody who has come out to watch tonight, it’s probably the biggest crowd we’ve had here, so thank you.”

P2 – Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK)

“Yeah, it’s not bad but it would’ve been better for a win! I enjoyed the race but got caught up at the beginning, but overall enjoyed it from start to finish and had a big smile. I came under some pressure from behind and I was just trying to maintain the gap to Jonathan, and then towards the end of the race he was just managing the front tyre a little bit better than me, and was able to get it in and out of the corner a little bit more effectively, whereas I was relying more on corner speed so we need to look at that for tomorrow. But, second position is not too bad and we know how fast Jonathan is here and it would be nice to try and go one better tomorrow. I think it’ll be a different race from the third row, but we’ll give it the berries and try to make the last one count; it’s so nice to be here under the floodlights, I really enjoy this event so we’ll try again then.”

P3 – .Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team)

“To be honest I enjoyed the whole race, I was pushing quite hard and I think Eugene had some problems with the front tyre, which gave me a small door to try and get through on the last lap. I really enjoyed battling with him and fair play to him, hopefully tomorrow we can try to improve the rear grip a bit and get onto the podium. It’s great to be back here after a difficult middle part of the year.”

More, from a press release issued by Gulf Althea Racing BMW:

Solid sixth for Baz in the penultimate SBK race at Losail

Doha (Qatar), Friday 26 October 2018

On track at the Losail International Circuit, the stage for the final Superbike world championship round this weekend, the Gulf Althea BMW Racing team and rider Loris Baz have concluded the first of the two races in solid sixth place.

Superpole2: having concluded yesterday’s practices in sixth position, Baz went straight through to today’s second Superpole phase. After completing two laps with the race tyre, the Frenchman was lying fifth with a time of 1’57.401. Heading back to the pits to put in the qualifying solution, Loris had time for three more laps, the best of which he completed in 1’57.347. Thanks to this time, Baz earned a third-row start, in seventh place, for race one.

SBK Race 1: struggling off the line, Baz lost four positions and was lying eleventh at the end of the opening lap. Determined to fight back, the Frenchman was able to find and maintain a good rhythm, which saw him pass Savadori on lap eight and gain another position shortly afterwards. Ninth towards the mid-race point, Loris further picked up the pace in the final stages of the race, reaching both van der Mark and Davies and executing two impressive passes in quick succession to move up to final sixth place. The Gulf Althea BMW rider thus earns important championship points and brings home a positive result for the team.

“I’m very happy with how today has played out. Superpole went well, I didn’t do quite what I wanted with the qualifying tyre but my performance with the race tyre gave me confidence for the race. As ever, I didn’t make the best start. It was a tough race, hot and humid, and I was struggling early on, but I think we made a good tyre choice, as I was able to come back strong. When I saw van der Mark and Davies were having some issues with the tyre, I made a move and was able to score P6, one of our best results of the year. Let’s see if, in tomorrow’s final race, we can score the points we need to achieve a top ten championship finish.”

More, from a press release issued by Red Bull Honda:

Gagne Equals Career Best Result with Ninth in Qatar

Qatar Round

Losail International Circuit, Qatar

A charging Jake Gagne claimed ninth place in the penultimate race of the 2018 WorldSBK season, earning a second row start for Race 2.

After a difficult opening day, the Red Bull Honda WorldSBK Team bounced back on Friday at the Losail International Circuit. Both Leon Camier and Jake Gagne started the day well in Free Practice 4 and were confident of challenging for the top two positions in Superpole 1. With a 1’57.555, over a second faster than he had been before SP1, Camier cruised through to Superpole 2 as the fastest rider. He would eventually earn tenth place on the grid, Gagne starting from 14th for the opening race.

The lights went out and Gagne immediately began to charge forward, making up two places on the opening lap. Gagne set a steady string of laps to break away from the chasing group, led by his team-mate Camier. His steady pace paid off towards the end of the race as Gagne picked off the likes of Savadori and Razgatlioglu for ninth place, missing out on eighth by a mere 0.061s as he and Chaz Davies dragged to the line. Gagne will now line up in sixth place on the second row for Race 2.

Having lost places at the start, Camier was eager to recover and chase down Gagne but got caught in traffic. While trying to regain positions the Brit unfortunately slid off at Turn 12, ending his race prematurely but escaping injury.

After taking ninth place in the opening race, Gagne increases his points haul to 64, just a point off 16th place in the championship. Camier continues to hold 12th overall.

The final race of 2018 will begin at 1900 local time (GMT +3) tomorrow, Camier and Gagne both looking to sign off the season in style.

Jake Gagne 45

We had a good race. The first half was pretty lonely but it started to come together for me as the tyre wear increased, I think we managed them a lot better than some of the guys around us. Qualifying wasn’t great, we had the speed to be up there but I made some mistakes and back there on row five makes for a rough start. I started flowing and being a little smoother and the Honda worked really well on the used tyres to end ninth. We can make the bike a little bit better in Warm Up. Row two will make a big difference, we’ve been on row five at pretty much every race and it makes the start tough. If we can get away with the faster guys it will make it a lot easier.

Leon Camier 2

I’m alright after the crash. I went over a bump and the front just went. It was a really fast one but luckily I only slid. In Superpole we went something like 1.8 seconds faster on the race tyre than we had been all weekend. We made a big step, it was only for one lap but we are gaining more. Then in the race we made a step with corner entry and everything is making more sense. We have 15 minutes tomorrow morning to keep improving the bike, so we need to sit down and have a think about what to do.

Kervin Bos

Team Manager

Really glad for Jake to confirm his speed in another race, his pace was really good. On the grid we told him ‘If you do your 58 lap times the race will come to you’. His ninth place matches his best from Laguna earlier this year so a big congratulations to him and importantly he starts on the second row tomorrow. He will be more than excited for the race tomorrow! Meanwhile, it was a tricky day for Leon. He got stuck in traffic and lost a lot of positions in the opening sector. From that point he tried to get feeling with the bike and push, but unfortunately lost the front in Turn 12 and ended his race. It’s not his weekend yet, but we rebuild and do it again tomorrow!

More, from a press release issued by Barni Racing Team:

#QatarWorldSBK: Forés thirteenth in race 1 at Losail

Losail (QAT) 26th October 2018. The penultimate race of the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship season ended with a thirteenth place for Xavi Forés. Under the floodlights at the Losail International Circuit, the Barni Racing Team rider had a solid pace remaining fifth throughout the race and showing once again his great state of form. In the last few kilometers, however, Forés lost eight positions due to a mistake. Finally he was thirteenth under the checkered flag.

After the twelfth place on Friday, Forés had to face Superpole 1, but thanks to an excellent lap (1’57.630) he managed to secure immediately one of the two first position and jumped into Superpole 2.

In the second qualifying session he cut down his best time (1’57.281), gathering a good sixth position in the starting grid. Gaining one more position at the start Xavi immediately pushed hard realizing his best lap in 1’57.9 at lap 2. He showed a constant pace between 1’58.1 and 1’59.0 maintaining his fifth place. This pace did not allow him to close the gap with Laverty and Lowes, but it was fast enough to keep Melandri behind until the last lap.

With the thirteenth place in the race 1 Forés earns three points in the championship and climbs to 230. Tomorrow in race two he will start from the eleventh spot of the grid to look for the comeback.

Marco Barnabò, Principal Manager

“We threw away a fantastic race. Xavi was strong throughout all the race managing to fight in the top 5. Unfortunately a mistake in the laps’ countdown by the race direction – which reported “last lap” with a lap in advance – led Xavi to think that the race was ended when one was still missing. Xavi saw “last lap” on the light and pushed to the maximum to save the position from Melandri. When he went back to the finish line he gave up the gas and it is understandable. Having done the whole race with a tough opponent behind him, he did not had the clarity to “check” if the checkered flag was exposed.”

Xavi Forés, #12

“I saw for two laps in a row “last lap” on the bright screen of the finish line and this made me think that the race was ended when there was one more lap. Many other riders ware damaged from this incorrect report, but the most penalized was me. It was a big mistake by the race direction. It was a shame because I had a great race, but from now we have to think about tomorrow.”

More, from a press release issued by Aruba.it Racing Ducati:

Melandri 5th and Davies 8th in Race 1 in Qatar with the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team

After a day of free-practice, the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team took it back to the track today at Losail (Qatar) for Race 1. Due to a difficult Superpole, Melandri and Davies started from ninth and twelfth position respectively, determined to make a strong comeback during the race. Both riders enjoyed a strong start and progressively recovered positions to fight for the top five for most of the race. Melandri eventually finished in fifth place, while Davies was misled along with other riders by a wrong message on the display over the finish line – an unfortunate circumstance, even though in these cases it’s the checkered flag that declares a race over – concluding the race in eighth position but managing to preserve a 23-point lead in the chase for second position in the Riders championship.

The Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team will resume action on Saturday, October 27th, at 15:30 local time (CET +1) for one warm-up session ahead of Race 2, which is scheduled to start at 19:00.

Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #33) – 5th

“Going into this round, I wasn’t expecting the kind of race we had today, and unfortunately it was tough for all Ducati riders. We couldn’t really do what we wanted with the bike, we were struggling to stop and turn it, and we also had some issues with traction. Due to that, I had to ride more aggressively and the tires dropped down a lot. Tomorrow we’ll start from first row, which is better, but we still need to improve the setup with the rear to put up a challenge. Warm-up will be important to this end. We’d like to finish strong.”

Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #7) – 8th

“We started a bit behind after a tough qualifying and then we began to make our way back. I eventually caught up with Marco and Xavi, closing up on them in the middle part of the race, but then I started to feel the front tucking with five laps to go and it got progressively worse. Our priority is to finish second in the championship so I just tried to hold position. Once Baz passed me, I saw ‘final lap’ on the display on the finish line, even though it was shown too early by accident, so I closed the throttle once I was over the line in the following lap. I lost a point and a position on the grid for tomorrow, which is a bit disappointing, but we also need to improve to finish stronger in our last race of the year.”

Serafino Foti, Team Manager

“It’s been a complicated race since we weren’t able to find the best possible setup to allow both our riders to express themselves at the top of their capabilities. At any rate, we collected important data, which we’ll now analyze to try to improve our performance in Race 2 tomorrow and finish the year in the best possible way.”

More, from a press release issued by Kawasaki:

Kawasaki 1-2 In Losail Opening Race

KRT riders Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes finished first and second in the opening race under the floodlights at Losail, with Rea equalling the existing record of 17 wins in a single season with his 11th consecutive victory. Sykes also extended his own all-time WorldSBK Superpole winning total to 48 today, in his final WorldSBK weekend with KRT.

With Sykes on pole and Rea alongside him the start of the race Rea took the holeshot into turn one and from then on ran at his own pace to ensure his latest win in what has been a remarkable fourth straight championship season.

Despite using up some of his front tyre life in his push to the front today Rea was able to keep his pace and composure to the end to record his 56th race victory for Kawasaki – a record for a single rider with a single manufacturer in WorldSBK. Eleven race wins in succession also moved Rea’s recent record of ten consecutive races on by one.

Sykes was on strong form from the start at Losail this weekend and extended his career Superpole record with a 1’56.124 lap in SP2 that just edged our Rea by 0.131 seconds.

In the race Tom was able to keep a clear space back to two battling riders and he finished just 1.424 seconds from Rea. Sykes was over 1.2 seconds from eventual third placed rider Alex Lowes, as he managed his pace to ensure he would finish second for a Kawasaki 1-2.

Race two will take place on Saturday the 29th of October 2018, again under the floodlights at 19.00 local time.

Toprak Razgatlioglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) proved to be the top independent rider in race one, finishing tenth, while Leandro Mercado (Orelac Racing VerdNatura Kawasaki) was 12th. Roman Ramos (Team GoEleven Kawasaki) placed 14th for two championship points, while rookie rider Gabriele Ruiu (Team Pedercini Racing Kawasaki) scored a point for 15th.

Jonathan Rea, stated: “There is a lot of hard work done to arrive in this position. It is really difficult; to build the package, the team atmosphere and a feeling with the bike. This weekend I have not quite felt myself on the bike and I said to my guys yesterday evening that this game is so much about confidence. We have been lucky this year in that I have had such a great feeling with the bike and that we have had that little bit extra. That gives you confidence and you are able to ride in a certain way. That is how it is done; that confidence the bike gives me, working with the team. Every time we are struggling, or my confidence is down, my crew chief Pere Riba finds a way to re-invent that, and turn things around. I am really grateful for that. People can find a good team and a good bike, and a good team can find a good rider, but trying to put all the elements together is really difficult. But I certainly have that with the Kawasaki Racing Team.”

Tom Sykes, stated: “I think overall we made a good race. Yesterday in the long run there was myself and another rider who destroyed the front tyre, so today I think it all went to plan. This morning in FP4 we used a set of tyres from yesterday, the pace was there, improving all the time. Then the qualifying tyre went into the bike for Superpole and instantly when that tyre goes in I go to my more natural riding style, and everything becomes easier. That was nice to win Superpole. In the first, probably eight, laps I felt like we could have pushed on a little bit harder in some of the fast right corners but I just kind of knocked it back a fraction – which I think proved a good idea. I saw the gap closing behind me a fraction at one stage so I pushed to finish second.”