World Superbike 2019 Has Already Started

World Superbike 2019 is off to an interesting start down under. At the end of practice Friday,  Alvaro Bautista’s new Ducati Panigale V4 was 0.14-second quicker than the Kawasaki ZX-10R of four-time Champ Jonathan Rea, followed by the other factory Kawi, followed by 2013 Champ Tom Sykes on a brand-new factory-backed BMW S1000RR – followed by a Yamaha, a Honda, and another Yamaha. We’ve got the top eight qualifiers, then, within 0.5-second of each other, on five different makes. If the goal was parity, so far so good.

Under WSBK’s new format, there’ll be another practice Saturday at 10 am, followed by Superpole at 12:15, then the first race of 2019 at 3 pm. On Sunday, there’ll be another Superpole Race at noon, followed by WSBK Race 2, again at 3 pm.

WorldSBK Friday Practice Combined Times
  1. Alvaro Bautista – Ducati 1:30.327
  2. Jonathan Rea – Kawasaki 1:30.341
  3. Leon Haslam – Kawasaki 1:30.482
  4. Tom Sykes – BMW 1:30.664
  5. Alex Lowes – Yamaha 1:30.783
  6. Leon Camier – Honda 1:30.792
  7. Sandro Cortese – Yamaha 1:30.850
  8. Markus Reiterberger – BMW 1:30.862
  9. Michael Van der Mark – Yamaha 1:31.049
  10. Toprak Razgatlioglu – Kawasaki 1:31.125
  11. Jordi Torres – Kawasaki 1:31.146
  12. Michael Rinaldi – Ducati 1:31.238
  13. Marco Melandri – Yamaha 1:31.259
  14. Chaz Davies – Ducati 1:31.334
  15. Eugene Laverty – Ducati 1:31.403
  16. Leandro Mercado – Kawasaki 1:31.545
  17. Ryuichi Kiyonari – Honda 1:31.790
  18. Alessandro Delbianco – Honda 1:32.669
  19. Troy Herfoss – Honda 1:34.314

Tons more info over here at WorldSBK.

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