Supersport Preview: Tremblay begins title defence against revamped group in SMP opener
Hamilton, ON – The most unpredictable class in Canadian racing will finally be back on track this week, as the rebranded Pro Supersport category will return to Shannonville Motorsport Park for the opening round of the 2025 Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship season, May 16-18.
Reigning champion Sebastien Tremblay will remain the odds-on favourite to defend his #1 plate after a clinical 2024, winning five times and taking nine podiums to secure his second career title and first since joining Turcotte Performance Suzuki.
The Mirabel, Quebec native has made it no secret that he wants to go down as the winningest rider in Supersport history, currently sitting third on the all-time list with 17 victories (trailing only Jordan Szoke and Steve Crevier), leaving him just as motivated as ever entering a new campaign at SMP.
The venue wasn’t always kind to Tremblay early in his career – especially compared to his impressive resumé at other circuits – but you wouldn’t know it given his last three trips to Shannonville, winning four out of six races since the 2023 finale.
Three of those wins admittedly came on the interior “long track” layout as opposed to the perimeter “pro track” configuration the series will be using in 2025, though a pair of epic battles with four-time Canada Cup winner Ben Young on the pro track last season showcased his capabilities on either layout.
Despite all of this, the Supersport class has reminded fans of one thing over and over again in recent years: don’t discount anybody.
That’s especially true in 2025 with perhaps the deepest grid in the series, one that includes at least eight different pro race winners.
Tops amongst them will be 2024’s “super-sub” Trevor Daley, who didn’t contest the full campaign but made every lap count when he was in the CSBK paddock.
The OneSpeed Suzuki rider won three times and scored five podiums in his six appearances, finishing fifth in the championship despite missing two rounds.
One of those absences was the season opener on SMP’s pro track, but there’s enough track record with Daley to know he will be fast on any day at any venue, something that will be welcome news to Suzuki as they chase a second consecutive Constructors Championship.
Suzuki will also welcome another title contender to the fold in John Laing, who departs Kawasaki to hop aboard a GSX-R750 this season. The Vass Performance rider was the top “old-gen” rider in 2024 but will now find himself on a more level playing field with Tremblay and company, representing Alberta’s best chance at a pro champion since Clint McBain in 2002.
The biggest x-factor on the grid will be the entry of Torin Collins, who makes his Supersport debut north of the border after racing full-time in the MotoAmerica category last season for Altus Suzuki.
Collins is well known to CSBK fans after his stunning wildcard victory in the Superbike class in Edmonton last season, and while a debut trip to SMP will mean learning the circuit for the first time in his career, a return aboard his familiar Suzuki GSX-R750 will make him another threat to win on pure talent alone.
Ending the run of Suzuki favourites will be local star Brad Macrae, who leads the charge of the old-gen machines for Colron Excavating Yamaha. After initial plans of running the new powerhouse R9 fell through, Macrae will instead return to the series aboard his familiar R6 with which he scored his first career victory at Shannonville in 2023.
Macrae missed all of 2024 after an injury suffered in the Daytona 200 and will undoubtedly be at a disadvantage against the new-gen Suzuki’s and Ducati’s, but his expertise around his home circuit will still make him a dark horse for a second career win for Yamaha.
Leading off the next group of challengers will be one of Tremblay’s former title rivals in Elliot Vieira, who will be looking to make up for a difficult 2024 as the lead Ducati. Vieira joined the juggernaut Economy Lube Ducati program midway through last season but struggled to find consistency, totalling four DNF’s in a five-race span.
A return to his privateer V2 Panigale may be all Vieira needs to remind the paddock of just how fast he is, having scored 14 podiums over the last three seasons – second to only Tremblay in that span – including four podiums at SMP.
Presumably absent from at least the first round will be Vieira’s former Economy Lube Ducati teammate Mavrick Cyr, who was arguably 2024’s biggest breakout star as he earned six podiums and an impressive victory at AMP to finish second in the championship as a rookie.
The 20-year-old has parted ways with Economy Lube and last raced in the Twins class in MotoAmerica aboard an Aprilia, leaving his status for the Supersport opener up in the air.
The last of the former winners expected to line up on the grid this weekend include teenage star Andrew Van Winkle and another previous vice-champion in Matt Simpson, who shouldn’t be discounted from a return to the top of the box despite old-gen machinery.
Van Winkle will hop aboard a GSX-R600 with the help of Marco Sousa and his Suzuki Canada program, who has supported Van Winkle’s entry into the Supersport category despite racing against him, finishing eighth in last year’s championship.
The 18-year-old Van Winkle didn’t race the opening round at SMP last season before scoring a historic victory and five podiums in the last seven races of 2024, and the former Twins champion will hope to continue that form into 2025.
As for Simpson, the 2023 runner-up only raced once last season – a quietly solid trip to CTMP aboard his underpowered Evans Racing Yamaha – but three podiums in his last four races at Shannonville cannot be ignored.
The rebranded Supersport category will officially get underway with Friday morning practice at Shannonville Motorsport Park, just an hour east of Kingston, Ontario, before a pair of thrilling races on the weekend.