VALENCIA STARTS WORLD SUPERBIKE’S GRAND EUROPEAN TOUR SBK Teams Return To ‘Normal’ Theatres of Operation: After season-opening rounds at the long-haul destinations of Qatar and Australia, the 12-round Corona Extra Superbike World Championship returns to more familiar territory for the remainder of the championship season. Valencia, now something of a regular stop off point for SBK races and test sessions, is round three in the current series, hosting two SBK races on Sunday 24th April. Valencia History: First introduced to the championship in 2000, the 4.005 km Valencia race circuit is a largely twisty ribbon of tarmac, inside a stadium-style layout, with large spectator grandstands on three sides. Several of the current crop of World Superbike contestants have already taken race wins there, most notably James Toseland, Troy Corser and Noriyuki Haga. 2005 Stars So Far: The merest glance at the current championship standings tells the story of the early 2005 series, with Alstare Corona Extra Suzuki riding duo of Troy Corser and Yukio Kagayama having scored the lion’s share of the points on offer. With 91 from a possible 100 for Corser and 85 for Kagayama, the Suzuki squad could hardly be better placed as they enter the Valencia round. Corser currently has three wins (26 in his career) while SBK new-boy Kagayama has a single success; race two in Qatar. Twins Continue Challenge: Closest challenger to the dominance of the Suzukis has been the Xerox Ducati of 2004 season runner up, Regis Laconi. His two podium finishes so far in 2005, and two gritty rides against adversity in Australia leave him third in the championship table, with 54 points. Having an even tougher 2005 so far is reigning Champion James Toseland, running his Xerox Ducati in an unaccustomedly lowly eighth place, after some dreadful misfortunes and high-speed crashes. As a winner at Valencia last year, his rivals know that he could well bounce back to be in running for honours again come raceday. Honda Hopefuls: Youth has been given chances in high profile teams once more this year, as fourth placed rider Chris Vermeulen (Winston Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR) and Max Neukirchner (Klaffi Honda CBR1000RR) battle it out for status of top Honda rider of 2005. Neukirchner, a promotee from WSS last year, will join Vermeulen on the 22-year mark, shortly before the Valencia weekend. In marked contrast, his team-mate the most experienced World Superbike riders there is is Pierfrancesco Chili. Suffering a broken collarbone in the Phillip Island event, Chili fully intends to ride in Spain, once more showing the grit that has underlined his long and glorious SBK career. Vermeulen’s team-mate, Karl Muggeridge (Winston Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR) enjoyed a stellar WSS career, and joins the SBK series for the first time this year as the reigning WSS champion. Having fielded the worst effects of illness at Qatar and misfortune in Australia, the 30-year-old Gold Coast rider, now based in Andorra and Switzerland, has a lot to look forward to at a track he has already tested on this season. Of the five top Honda entrants in the field, Ben Bostrom (Renegade Honda) will see his Valencia results most likely influenced by machinery, as his team continues to catch up time after an unavoidably late start to their 2005 preparations. Yamaha Hierarchy Firming Up: Thanks to four strong points scoring rides in real race conditions, Yamaha Motor France rider Norick Abe has secured the status of top Yamaha rider at this point, sitting sixth, just ahead of the Yamaha Motor Italia rider Andrew Pitt. Yet another former World Supersport champion, and yet another Aussie, now plying his trade in the new-look Superbike series, Pitt has impressed with his hard riding style and overall commitment. A double no-score from Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia) at Phillip Island has dropped him down the order to 11th, while Sebastien Gimbert (Yamaha Motor France) a true star of pre-season qualifying, has yet to find his feet in SBK race conditions. A return to the scene of some of his extreme pre-season competitiveness may be just what the Frenchman requires to get back on terms. Home Town Spaniards: Jose Luis Cardoso (Yamaha DFX Extreme Sterilgarda) will be looking to the familiar setting of Valencia to score his first points since joining the championship. His fellow Spaniard, Fonsi Nieto (SC Ducati 999RS) has a superb ride to fifth in the aggregate race at Phillip Island, securing for himself a top ten championship placing thus far, in what is also his rookie SBK season. His team-mate, Ducati’s favoured son Lorenzo Lanzi (SC Ducati 999RS), is yet another rider attempting to overturn some bad luck and show his true abilities in the biggest class of Superbike racing there is. Kawasaki On the Up: Chris Walker and Mauro Sanchini (PSG-1 Kawasaki) look like battling it out for supremacy in the ZX-10 camp, with Walker the pre-season favourite in this internal battle, yet suffering some outrageous misfortune thus far. The Bertocchi Kawasaki squad, comprising Giovanni Bussei and Ivan Clementi, are also capable of upsets on machinery supplied by the fourth major Japanese manufacturer represented in WSB this year. Petronas In Focus: A previous version of the unique and technically innovative Petronas three-cylinder machinery, similar to that utilised by Aussie duo Garry McCoy and Steve Martin in 2005, enjoyed some success at Valencia last year. It will be difficult to emulate this once more, given the huge increase in the numbers of potential winning machines on the grid, but in McCoy and Martin, Petronas has two battling competitors, ready to take any opportunity that comes their way. Supersport: Winston Ten Kate Honda rider Sebastien Charpentier scored the win at Phillip Island, to take the lead in the championship from his team-mate Katsuaki Fujiwara. The Honda duo have been the best of the bunch so far, each with a win, but Yamaha Motor Germany pilot Kevin Curtain has been a strong force throughout the early championship stages. Team Italia Megabike Honda runners Fabien Foret and Michel Fabrizio, are another talented pairing, the experience of 2003 WSS champion Foret contrasting and complimenting the exuberance of 2003 European Superstock champion Fabrizio. After a difficult start to the year, Jurgen van den Goorbergh (SL Ducati) got his season off to a better footing with a fifth place finish in Australia, at one of his favourite circuits.